o 156)1 



542-71 4-20m-6099 

BULLETIN 

OF 

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 

NO. 364 

ISSUED SIX TIMES A MONTH 



EXTENSION SERIES NO. 62 OCTOBER 10, 1914 



A STUDY OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
IN TEXAS 



BY 
E. V. WHITE 

AND 
E. E. DAVIS 

Depanment of Extension, Division of Public School Improvement 
The University of Texas 




Published by 

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 

Entere as second-class mail matter at the postoffice at Austin, Texas 






The benefits of education and of useful 
knowledge, generally diffused through acora- 
munity, are essential to the preservation of a 
free government. 

Sam Houston. 



Cultivated mind is the guardian genius 
of democracy It is the only dic- 
tator that freemen acknowledge and the only 
security that freemen desire. 

Mirabeau B. Lamar. 



D. Of D. 
JAN 1^6 .915 



k 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

I. Educational Rank of Texas 15 

II. Necessity for Compulsory School Attendance in Texas 20 

III. Consolidation and Transportation 26 

IV. Rural School Administration 36 

County Supervision 36 

State Apportionment for Country High Schools 40 

V. The Rural Church 44 

VI. The Rural Schools of Harris County 50 

History, Location, and Economic Status 50 

Market Facilities, Roads, and Transportation 52 

Transportation of Pupils at Public Expense 52 

Clubs, Social Meetings, and Athletic Sports 54 

Teachers 59 

Physical Features of the Public Schools 60 

Educational System in Operation 64 

Summary of Facts About Harris County Public Schools 67 

Causes Contributing to Educational Development 68 

Pasadena Public School in Harris County 69 

Dairy School No. 46 in Harris County 76 

VII. The Rural Schools of Bell County 83 

Economic and Industrial Situation 83 

Market Facilities 86 

Railroads 86 

Good Roads 86 

Social Conditions 87 

Churches 89 

Educational Status and Tendencies 90 

Instruction 90 

Tenure of Teachers 93 

School Districts and Consolidation 94 

Physical Features of the Schools 96 

Local Taxation • 98 

Schoolhouse Bonds 98 

Governing Boards.... 99 

The County Superintendent's Office 100 

Summary and Recommendations 102 

The Willow Grove School 103 

Prairie Dell School 107 



4 Contents 

Page. 

VIII. The Rural Schools of CoUin County Ill 

Location, Topography, and Roads Ill 

Influence of Physical and Economic Features 112 

Farm Tenancy 114 

Large Districts vs. Small Districts 116 

Dixon Consolidated School 119 

Lucas School 120 

Conclusions and Recommendations •. 122 

IX. The Rural Schools of Nacogdoches County 125 

Location, Topography, Transportation and Communica- 
tion 125 

County and Community Fairs 125 

Martinsville School 126 

Social Recreation and Athletic Sports 128 

Financial and Physical Features of the Common Schools 131 

Recommendations 135 

Chireno Public School 135 

X. The Rural Schools of Fisher County 139 

Economic and Industrial Situation 139 

Social and Religious Conditions 140 

Educational Status and Tendencies 142 

Course of Study 142 

Teachers 144 

Need for Rural High Schools 145 

A Practical Plan for Providing Rural High Schools 146 

Schoolhouses 147 

Local Taxes 150 

Consequences of Effective Supervision 151 

County Teachers' Institutes 1153 

Libraries 153 

County Permanent School Fund 153 

Needs of the Country Schools 154 

XL Betterment of Rural Life About the Tuleta Rural High 

School, Bee County, Texas 155 



DEPARTMENT OF EXTENSION 

OFFICERS OF ADMINISTRATION 

Sidney Edward Mezes, Ph. D., President of the University. 
F. M. Bralley, Director of the Department of Extension. 
Sam C. Polk, Secretary to the Director. 



Division of Coi-i'espondence Instruction. 

L. W. Payne, Jr., Ph. D., Head of the Division. 
W. Ethel Barron, Registrar. 

Division of Public Welfare. 

Charles B. Austin, M. A., Head of the Division. 

George S. Wehrwein, B. S., Specialist and Lecturer on Co- 
operation. 

W. A. Schoenfeld, B. S., Specialist in Farm and Co-Opera- 
tive Accounting. 

Division of Public Discussion. 

E. D. Shueter, Ph. B., Head of the Division. 

A. J. Robinson, B. A., Lecturer and Athletic Organizer. 

Marian Edith Potts, B. A., Package Librarian. 

Division of Home Welfare. 

Mary E. Gearing, Head of the Division. 

Jessie P. Rich, B. S., Lecturer on Domestic Economy. 

Edith Allen, B. A., Lecturer on Domestic Economy. 

Division of Public School Improvement. 

E. V. White, B. S., Head of the Division. 
Edward E. Davis, B. A., Lecturer. 
Amanda Stoltzfus, L. L, Lecturer. 

Division of Public Lectures and Publicity. 

John A. Lomax, M. A., Head of the Division. 

Division of Child Welfare. 

A. Caswell Ellis, Ph. D., Head of the Division. 
N. L. Hoopingarner, B. A., Assistant. 



Purpose. Every university should serve not only its resident 
student body but also the entire community. This is true in a 
peculiar sense of a state university; supported as it is by the 
taxes of all the people, it is under business obligation to render 
back service to each citizen and to the commonwealth. In a 
general sense a university fulfills this obligation by sending edu- 
cated young men and women back into their home communities 
to carry with them the culture of a broader outlook; the skill 
acquired through professional training as lawyers, teachers, doctors, 
nurses, home-makers, business men; and especially the inspiration 
to unselfish service as citizens that is the intangible and priceless 
asset of university life. 

Taking the University to the People. This indirect contact 
with the whole people of the state is, however, not sufficient. The 
constant aim of the President and Eegents has been to broaden 
the scope of the University of Texas with the broadening interests 
of the state, and to bring its benefits within the reach of as many 
individuals as possible. In 1898 the Summer Schools were opened 
and have been maintained each summer since for the convenience 
of students who are unable to attend the long session, especially for 
the teachers of the Texas schools whose professional work fills the 
winter months. As a further step toward making the University 
directly useful to large numbers of people who are unable to attend 
the classes of either the long, or the summer session, the Depart- 
ment of Extension was established four years ago. This Depart- 
ment has developed rapidly, and its work is now carried forward 
under seven divisions, as fololws: 

The Division of Public Welfare. It is the purpose of this 
division to go into the field and investigate the economic and 
social conditions in the state, with a view of collecting such reliable 
data as may present a basis for intelligent efforts at improving such 
conditions. It is hoped that through this Department the citizens 
of the state may have the advantage of unbiased University 
experts, who can come to them and advise with them whenever they 
wish to plan any economic and social movement. The time of 
one or more persons will be devoted to the various problems of 



8 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

rural economy, sanitation, social life, finance, marketing, and kin- 
dred subjects. 

The Division of Public Discussion. This division has for 
its purpose the encouragement and intelligent direction of public 
discussion and debate, both in schools and out of them. Bulle- 
tins have been issued giving advice regarding the organization 
of debating clubs, and furnishing lists of references for reading 
and preparation for debate on a number of topics. Loan libraries 
on important subjects, such as prohibition, woman suffrage, in- 
itiative and referendum, prison reform, compulsory education, the 
commission form of city government, municipal ownership of 
public utilities, and the tariff and free raw material, have been 
prepared and are being loaned to such clubs and individuals as 
request them. The University Intersch clastic League has been 
successfully organized, and it is the hope of this division to assist 
in developing the school as a social center through which the com- 
munity may become better informed. County organizations be- 
longing to the League hold annually county contests in debating, 
declamation, and athletics. Every school in Texas should be in- 
terested in this work, and a League should be organized in each 
county. Upon request the Constitution of the League, together 
with bulletins and other information, will be mailed. 

The Division of Home Welfare. The division deals specifically 
with all problems relating to the home, and exists primarily for 
the benefit of the home-maker and with a view of placing the home 
on the same intelligent and prosperous basis which characterizes 
other progressive institutions. Lecturers and demonstrators will 
attend fairs, county educational rallies, and make a limited num- 
ber of engagements through the medium of women's organizations, 
to give specific instruction on subjects of vital interest to the home. 
Bulletins will be issued frequently on matters pertaining to the 
home and may be had on application to the Department. Ques- 
tions will gladly be answered at any time on matters pertaining to 
the welfare of the home. Further information may be obtained 
by writing to the division. 

The Division of Public School Improvement. This division 
has in charge the various educational exhibits sent out by the Uni- 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 9 

versity to the fairs and other large gatherings, to call to the atten- 
tion of the people certain needs of Texas and to point out the most 
intelligent methods of m.eeting these needs. These exhibits cover 
such vital subjects as school buildings and school hygiene, plays 
and playgrounds, use of schools as social centers, medical inspection 
of schools and care of the feeble-minded. Information on miscel- 
laneous subjects is furnished through the co-operation of men in 
the faculty who have expert knowledge in their various fields. 
Eeady-made lectures, accompanied by slides, are sent out to respon- 
sible people who are attempting local improvement. Short, prac- 
tical bulletins have been prepared on many such timely subjects 
as Wholesome Cooking under Rural Conditions, Beautification of 
Home and School Grounds. Pamphlets have also been issued on 
One and Two-Eoom Rural School Buildings, Three and Four- 
Room Rural School Buildings, Remodeled Rural School Build- 
ings. These contain full detailed drawings and detailed archi- 
tect's specifications. As its title indicates, the activities of this 
division are diversified. The aim of the division is to be useful 
in the homes and in the schools of the state, and to this end 
correspondence with communities that desire its co-operation is 
invited. 

The Division of Public Lectures. In the Division of Public 
Lectures the University undertakes to provide competent, trained, 
and impartial speakers, chiefly from among its faculty, to present 
to the people the great questions of the day, and interesting phases 
of literature, science, and art. It is by no means the purpose 
of these lectures to be merely amusing; the attempt is made to 
present in a popular and attractive form a definite amount of 
reliable instruction. A special bulletin setting forth the available 
lectures has been prepared and will be sent upon application. 

The Division of Child Welfare. The Division of Child Welfare 
investigates local conditions affecting children, and assists in plans 
for bettering the conditions affecting childhood. The hygienic 
and sanitary conditions of schools have been given much study, 
and through bulletins, letters, and lectures help is given to school 
boards in planning new schoolhouses and in remodeling old ones 
to make them more hygienic. The feeble-minded and delinquents 



10 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

have been studied and assistance given in drafting laws to care bet- 
ter for them. Numerous other studies will be taken up as rapidly 
as funds are made available. A ps3Thological clinic will next year 
be established at the University to which abnormal, or atypical, 
children may be brought for diagnosis. At present the division 
gives free advice by mail on any matter pertaining to child welfare. 

The Division of Correspondence Instruction. Teaching by cor- 
spondence has long since passed the experimental stage. While 
the University recommends resident work when residence is pos- 
sible, believing that the experience of meeting and mixing with 
fellow students and the consequent training in real democracy as 
well as the personal contact with and inspiration from the teachers, 
is invaluable, yet the authorities of the University also realize that 
correspondence study offers substantial advantages. In correspond- 
ence instruction the teaching is entirely individual; each student, 
no matter how diffident or how lacking in aggressiveness, comes 
into individual relation with the instructor in a way impossible 
in the crowded classroom. He recites the whole of every lesson 
with a consequent advantage to himself that is obvious. Full op- 
portunity is given to discuss all difficulties in writing, and this 
written discussion in itself affords valuable training. Further, a 
correspondence student is not hampered by the usual time regu- 
lations; he may take up a study at his convenience without await- 
ing the fixed date of a college term, and he may push the work 
to completion as rapidly as he is able to master it. Moreover, cor- 
respondence work develops in a marked degree initiative, self- 
reliance, accuracy, and above all, perseverance. 



A STUDY OF RURAL SCHOOLS 
IN TEXAS 



INTRODUCTION 

The Universit}' of Texas, as the head of the public school sys- 
tem of the state, has from the beginning manifested a commend- 
able interest in the improvement of the common public schools, 
rural and urban, and in promoting a co-operative spirit among all 
reputable educational institutions in Texas, state, denominational, 
and private. 

This bulletin is the result of a study or a survey made by 
Messrs. E. V. White and E. E. Davis of the Division of Public 
School Improvement of the Department of Extension of the Uni- 
versity. The study or survey included the rural public schools of 
Harris, JSTacogdoches, Bell, Collin, and Fisher counties, and a few 
additional observations on the educational conditions and needs 
of Texas. It was made for the purpose of assembling reliable 
information as to the exact educational status in five typical coun- 
ties of the state, knowing that such information would be helpful 
in any effort to provide better schools throughout the state by 
county superintendents of schools, boards of school trustees, teach- 
ers, and other citizens who are interested in good schools for the 
children of Texas. 

The methods adopted by Messrs. White and Davis in making 
the study or survey were broad and comprehensive; and they have 
sought to present in composite form the educational situation, in- 
cluding all of its fundamental phases, with the view to eliminating 
defects, to strengthening the weak places, and to contributing in 
a constructive way to better public sentiment and better public 
schools. In their work they went to original sources for informa- 
tion and observation, — to the county school superintendents, to the 
boards of school trustees, to the teachers, to the schools, to the 
homes of representative citizens, to the records of the commission- 
ers' courts, to the officers and some of the leading members of the 
social, industrial, and religious organizations of the counties, and 
obtained the information at first hand. 

Messrs. Wliite and Davis are recognized by competent authorities 
as being admirably fitted or equipped for making studies or sur- 
veys of this kind. It is therefore believed that this study or survey 
contains information of interest and value to the people of Texas, 
and that the bulletin will be read by thousands of citizens, and 
the information contained therein will be used effectively in pro- 
moting educational progress in Texas. 

F. M. Brallet, Director. 



A STUDY OF RURAL SCHOOLS IN TEXAS 

I. EDUCATIONAL RANK OF TEXAS 

The education of all tlie children of ail the people is now gener- 
ally conceded to be one of the most important functions of the 
state. A perfect democracy would provide for the education of 
every citizen. It does not follow, however, that all citizens must 
have the same kind of education; but each person should receive- 
that training which will contribute most to his own happiness and 
which will make him a useful factor in human society. 

Perhaps the best way to judge the degree of our educational 
efficiency is by comparison. The inexcusably low rank of Texas- 
is neither in keeping with our state pride nor commensurate with 
our material greatness. According to the most recent statistics 
available, the following is a summary of the educational rank of 
Texas among the several states of the Union : 

Item. Rank. 

Per cent of children enrolled in school 4& 

Value of school property per child 36 

Annual expenditure per cliild 39 

Per cent of average daily attendance per child 33 

Average days of attendance per child 42 

Length of public school term 39 

Amount expended for schools per $100 of wealth 18 

Daily cost per child in school attendance 39 

Per cent of pupils in high school 32 

Average annual salary of teachers 30 

Per cent of illiteracy among persons ten years of age or over ... 35 

The facts presented in the ensuing pages have for their object 
the attainment of better educational advantages for the boys and 
girls of our state, special attention being given to better country 
schools. Incidentally, it is hoped that this bulletin will contribute 
its share towards quickening a public conscience that will raise our 
state from its present low educational rank. Criticism is most 
valuable when it points the way to constructive improvement. This 



16 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

object has been constantly kept in mind. Before discussing the 
concrete data dealing with the school systems that obtain in the 
few counties studied, attention is directed to certain definite edu- 
cational movements that are at this time of state-wide concern. 

Financial Support of Public Schools in Texas. 

The permanent school fund consisting of lands, land notes, and 
bonds, amounts to $71,876,195.20. Texas enjo3's the distinction 
of having the largest permanent public school fund of all the 
statefc in the Union, but in general educational rank stand's tenth 
from the bottom of the list of all the states. The income from 
the permanent school fund is entirely too small to meet the edu- 
cational needs of the 1,0^:8,570 school children of tlie state unless 
supplemented from other sources. During the pioneer days of 
Texas this magnificent school fund was a great boon to education, 
but with the enormous growth in the scholastic population and the 
general raising of educational standards in recent years, it has 
ceased to yield adequate financial support, and in some instances 
is actually retarding educational progress. There are many in- 
different school communities that will never give any substantial 
local support to the cause of education in a financial way as long 
as they are so genially contented with the deceptive belief that 
Texas has the greatest public school system in the world and that 
the state funds are amply sufficient to make it all it needs to be. 
This meager annual apportionment gratuitously given by the state 
often encourages listless, apathetic communities not to do their 
duty by themselves in the way of local taxation for school purposes. 
T]]e time has come when the available state school fund, or at least 
a part of it, should be apportioned on some other basis than that 
of scholastic population. 

It is interesting to note that most of the states having the high- 
est general educational rank are the ones where the greatest per 
cent of the public school revenue is derived from local taxes. In 
Massachusetts, 96.8 per cent of the available school fund is raised 
by local taxation; in New York, 87 per cent; in Connecticut, 80.6 
per cent; in Texas, only 38.9 per cent. 

In point of average annual expenditure per child for public 
education, Texas is outranked by thirty-eight states; thirty-.^ix 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 17 

states have more invested per child in school property than Texas, 
■and thirty pay a better average salary to their teachers. The aver- 
age annual amount expended for the education of each child (five 
to eighteen years of age) in Texas in 1910 was $7; in Oklahoma, 
$13; in Colorado, $24; in Massachusetts, $25; in Washington, $32. 
In 1910, Texas had an average of $18 per child invested in school 
buildings, grounds, and equipment. During the same year Cali- 
fornia had $89; New York, $111; Massachusetts, $115; and thirty- 
three other states had more than Texas. The average salary for 
teachers in Texas in 1910 was $384; in New York, $813; in Ari- 
zona, $817; in California, $918; while twenty-seven other states 
paid more for such services than Texas. 

Texas stands fourth in population and fifth in wealth among 
the states, but the people have been reluctant to contribute of their 
means to the cause of education. In 1910, out of each $100 of 
wealth in Texas, the pittance of thirty-three cents was appro- 
priated to the public schools. The young neighbor state of Okla- 
homa gave more than double this amount, and fifteen other states 
did better than Texas. Yet in the face of all this poor showing, 
Texas is making some progress. In 1913, the amount raised by 
local taxation was 36.5 per cent more than for the year 1910; 
while during the same time the per capita expenditure on the 
scholastic population has increased 14.3 per cent; and the average 
annual teacher's salary has grown from $394.23 to $415.27, which 
is a gain of 5.3 per cent. 

While teachers' salaries have increased somewhat during recent 
years, yet it is quite probable, when the increased cost of living is 
considered, that teachers are not as well paid today as they were 
ten years ago. In 1911, the United States Bureau of Labor found 
that wholesale prices were 44.1 per cent higher than they were in 
1897. With this statement as a basis of comparison, it is evident, 
then, that a salary of $693.73 in 1907 had as great a purchasing 
power as a salary of $1000 in 1911. 

The inferiority of the Texas public schools is due to the ineffi- 
ciency of the teachers more than to any other single cause. On 
an average, Texas teachers continue in the profession less than 
four years. They find more lucrative employment elsewhere, and 
new, inexperienced teachers take the places left vacant in the 
schoolroom. .This is extremely disadvantageous to the public 



18 Bulletin of the University of 'Texas 

schools, but we cannot expect any change for the better until sal- 
aries are made sufficiently attractive to induce people to prepare 
themselves and enter the profession as a life work. Teaching in 
Texas is now not a profession; it is merely temporary employment 
in the majority of cases. 

Though most of the wealth of Texas consists of lands and live 
stock located in the country, it is the country schools that are 
suffering most for want of proper financial support. This is evi- 
dent when a comparison of the finances of the rural schools is 
made Avith the finances of the town and city schools. In 1913 
there were in Texas 8496 rural school districts and 590 independ- 
ent school districts.* For the school year 1912-13, there were 
3084, or 36 per cent, of the common school districts that levied 
no local school maintenance tax 'at all; while only 26, or 2.7 per 
cent, of the independent districts did not levy a local tax. There 
were 642,726 children in the country schools, and 374,407 children 
in the schools of the towns and cities. For the education of the 
642,726 children in the rural districts, $1,657,595.58, or $2.58 per 
capita, was raised by local taxation ; while for the 347,407 children 
in the town and city communities, $3,551,108.14, or $9.48 per 
capita, was raised by local taxation. In 1911-12, there was $9,307,- 
653 M'orth of schol property, or $14.74 per scholastic, in the rural 
schools; for the same year there was $21,170,656 worth of school 
property in the towns and cities of Texas, which was $59.07 per 
capita scholastic, or 232 per cent per child more than was reported 
for the country places. 

Texas is almost a half century behind the leading states in the 
financial support of her schools, and the public mind will have to 
be thoroughly revolutionized in this regard before a respectable 
educational showing can ever be made. It lies within the power 
of the Thirty-fourth Legislature to initiate a remedy which, when 
acted upon, will relieve the present strained condition in many of 
the most progressive school districts. A constitutional amend- 
ment should be submitted which will remove the maximum local 
school tax limit of 50 cents per $100 property valuation in com- 



*For convenience in this discussion all common school districts and 
all independent districts of fewer than one hundred and fifty scholastics 
shall be regarded as rural, and all independent districts of more than 
one hundred and fifty scholastics as urban. 



.■i study of Rural Schools in Texas 19 

mon school and independent school districts and permit also the 
levy of a county tax not exceeding 20 cents on the $100 property 
valuation where authorized by a majority of the property tax- 
paying voters. For several years many districts have sought every 
possible means to increase their school revenues, and justice de- 
mands that constitutional inhibitions shall no longer obstruct the 
way to better schools. 

The public schools of Texas have also suffered in their financial 
support because of a failure to levy as great a state tax as the 
law requires. The present constitutional and statutory limit of 
such tax is 20 cents on the $100 valuation of property. A law 
was enacted by the Thirtieth Legislature requiring the state tax 
board to determine the rate to be levied from year to year, with 
the provision that the minimum rate shall be such as will produce 
$4 per capita for all pupils of the scholastic age. During the 
seven years that this law has been in operation the failure to com- 
ply with its requirements has cost the available school fund 
thousands of dollars. 



20 Bulletin of the University of Texas 



II. NECESSITY FOR COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTEND- 
ANCE IN TEXAS. 

In the United States compulsory school attendance had its be- 
ginning in Massachusetts more than a century ago. At the close 
of the nineteenth century only twelve states were, without such 
laws. The map on the opposite page shows that in 1910 every 
state in the Union except six liad enacted some form of law for 
compelling school attendance. 

So universal has become the idea of the compleie justice of com- 
pulsory education as a function and duty of the .-tate that tlie 
necessity for the advocacy of the principle among intelligent people 
is painfully embarrassing. Only the absence of a legal recognition 
of the principle in a great commonwealth can justify an enumera- 
tion of facts which would otherwise appear unnecessary, or even 
ridiculous. Let the facts speak for themselves; and let the fair- 
minded and thoughtful citizen weigh them without prejudice in 
the light of modern progress. 

The scholastic age in Texas in 1911-12 included all children 
from seven to seventeen years of age. Scholastic census rolls 
showed an enumeration of 791,491: white children. During this 
year the public schools enrolled 675,718, and it is estimated that 
private schools enrolled 35,000 scholastics, leaving a total of 90,776 
children of scholastic age who did not attend school a single day 
during the year. Again, there was an average daily attendance 
in the public schools of 439,099 white children, and an average 
daily absence of 352,-395. It is indeed difficult for the average 
mind to comprehend how many human souls are included in this 
vast army of absentee pupils from the schools. Placed twelve feet 
apart, these white pupils absent every day from the public schools 
in Texas would form a line extending across the state from El 
Paso to Texarkana, a distance of over eight hundred miles ! 

Think of the vast economic loss to the state and to individual 
families because of irregular attendance upon the schools. Pre- 
suming that the schools are perfect and that the work of every 
child while in school represents his best, the absentee pupils destroy 
at least 45.8 per cent of the possible efficiency of the school. The 
most accurate statistics available estimate the value in dollars and 



A Study of Rural Schools fn Texas 



21 




22 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

cents of a child's work in school at $10 per day. Accordingly, 
Texas is losing in potential earning capacity at the rate of $3,523,- 
950 daily during the entire school session because of poor attend- 
ance. In a school year of 130 days, the average length of the 
school term, the economic waste from this source alone reaches 
the astounding and inconiprehensible sum of $458,114,500. A fire 
or flood which causes the loss of a few million dollars is a subject 
of much interest. The loss occasioned by a mismanaged peni- 
tentiary system is considered a matter of grave public concern. 
How insignificant are these when compared to the loss from non- 
attendance upon the schools ! The same person who marvels at 
the magnitude of material misfortunes fails to observe that there 
is a greater misfortune, occasioned by the fact that his neighbor's, 
possibly his own, children are absent from the schools. And yet, 
financial reward is the lowest consideration which education offers. 

Under conditions that do not protect the child against the 
passion of commercialism- and the whims of vice and ignorance, 
it is not surprising that Texas ranks forty-sixth among the states, 
in per cent of school population (five to eighteen years) enrolled 
in public and private schools. Nor. is it to be wondered at that 
only forty per cent of the children in the country districts ever 
reach the fifth grade, while fewer than five per cent reach the 
high school grades. It may be argued that the production of 
cotton presents a peculiar economic situation which renders good 
attendance upon the schools impracticable; but the answer must 
be, in all seriousness and candor, that any industry which takes 
the children from the schools imposes a cost too high to be profit- 
able. 

Poor school attendance is doubtless responsible to a large extent 
for the fact that Texas ranks thirty-fifth in per cent of illiterate 
population ten years of age and over, as shown by the accompany- 
ing table. It cannot be denied that the negro population is partly 
responsible for this high rate of illiteracy; but it is nevertheless 
true that the greater responsibility lies elsewhere. United States 
Commissioner Claxton says upon this point: "The higher rate 
of rural illiteracy in the southern states cannot be laid to the negro 
population, because for the entire group of southern states the 
rate of illiteracy among the rural whites is three times the rate 
among the urban whites, and the rate among rural whites is greater 



A Studij of Rural Schools in Texas 



33 




24 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

in every individual southern state than among urban whites. The 
rate of illiteracy among rural negroes in the same states, while 
nearly seven times the rate for the rural whites, is only one and 
one-half times the rate of illiteracy among urban negroes." 

A few apparently honest people have been so far misguided as to 
oppose any form of compulsory school attendance because of their 
disbelief in the education of the negro. They would place a bridle 
of restraint and negligence upon the white children, who con- 
stitute four-fifths of the scholastic population, on account of their 
antipathy for the negroes, who constitute only one-fifth of the 
scholastic population. Even if all money spent for the education 
of the negro were a wasted erpenditure, opposition for the reason 
offered would be untenable and unjustifiable. Furthermore, there 
is no reason why money spent for the education of the negro should 
not be a profitable investment if the school is made to set the 
negro's feet on the path to industrial efficiency. 

The right of the parent over the child is not one of unrestrained 
authority. Long ago the state denied to the parent the right of 
taking the life of his child, visiting such inhumanity with the 
stigma and punishment accorded the vilest of murderers. It 
rightfully forbids the mutilation of the child's body or the inflic- 
tion of unreasonable punishment. Is it not inconsistent, from a 
moral point of view, to prohibit a parent from cutting off the 
arm of his child, and permit him at the same time to suppress 
the child's mental development, or to limit its sphere of useful- 
ness? Is the body more sacred than the mind? It is the inalien- 
able right of every child to obtain at the joint expense of the 
parent and the state a training that will prepare him to make an 
honest living and to contribute a service of usefulness to society; 
and the strong arm of the state should protect innocent childhood 
against the olstinancy, ignorance, or incapacity of the parent by 
the enactment of a reasonable and effective compulsory school at- 
tendance law. 

Details of the kind of law most suitable need not be discussed 
here since the laws of more than forty states furnish ample litera- 
ture on the subject. And no advice with respect thereto will be 
offered except a statement of the general principle that a law with 
few provisions well enforced is far better than one of many pro- 



A Study of Rural Scliools in Texas 25 

visions not enforced. This literature, together with that available 
from the office of the United States Commissioner of Education^ 
should he more than enough to convince the Thirty-fourth Legis- 
lature of Texas of the pressing necessity for a compulsory educa- 
tion law. Here is a large oppo'iunity for the Legislature to do 
itself honor. 



2€ Bulletin of the University of Texas 



III. CONSOLIDATION AND TRANSPORTATION. 

Meaning of Consolidation. 

By a consolidated school is meant a school of large numbers, 
largf area, and large resources. Roughly speaking, it may be con- 
sidered a school of 150 pupils or more, a faculty of at least four 
teachers, a district with an area not less than twenty-five square 
miles, and an assessed property valuation of $500,000 or more. 
While these estimates may vary with local conditions, the mainte- 
nance of a good consolidated school is based fundamentally on 
large units of three essential factors — pupils, area, wealth. 

Extent of Consolidation in the United States. 

The consolidated school is no longer an experiment. Every 
school authority in the world recognizes that the maintenance of 
^cient country schools requires the abandonment of the small, 
primitive schools and the substitution therefor of fewer schools 
at convenient and accessible points. The principle has become an 
integral part of the rural school system of not less than forty 
states. More than 1500 consolidations have been affected during 
the past year. These schools, now numbering approximately 9500 
partially consolidated and completely consolidated schools, have 
found greatest favor in Louisiana, Indiana, Massachusetts, Min- 
nesota, Ohio, and North Dakota. The significant fact that there 
is not on record one single case of retrogression where consolida- 
tion has been given a fair trial presents an argument that its 
opponents cannot answer. 

Of indisputable benefit in the states where it has been tried, 
eould Texas expect a similar advantage from consolidation? The 
abundant literature on the subject, to which practically every 
bureau of education in the country has contributed, renders un- 
necessary an exhaustive discussion here. Considering local con- 
ditions, the question may be stated: Will Texas be justified in 
participating on a larger scale in this nation-wide movement for 
tibe betterment of rural environment? 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 



27 



Wkah ^ngoUAnliorL ^l^kdits 



i'Aa 



IDIimI ^ S(^xoo\ Proa ^vdss 




mid'iM sckb k Ik Mid Skk Sk sj^ifiVanl fd M hin 
{? no\ on tvixjri In all {k woM a $kjh mi Of ilidonmnl wkn 
msollkl'm has hm ^im a fdr kid fnsinb an ar^mmt 
lluf Wia oppomnh ofcon^Malm (mno\ di\$iui^tr. 



88 Bulletin of the Universiti/ of Texas 

Advantages of Consolidated Schools. 

A most important consideration in the maintenance of a good 
school is the employment of trained teachers. Of the 8500 coun- 
try schools in Texas, approximately 6000 are one-teacher schools. 
These are generally too impoverished to employ teachers whose 
qualifications are recognized in the larger schools. As a result 
the country schools have become a kind of pedagogical laboratory 
for the annual initiation of nearly five thousand inexperienced 
teachers. Let it also be remembered that nine-tenths of the teach- 
ers who hold second grade certificates have their professional life 
confined to the country schools. Investigation further proves that 
less than one per cent of the teachers have had technical training 
in agriculture. The maintenance of consolidated schools would 
mean larger taxable areas with the consequent result of funds 
available for the employment of experienced teachers or teachers 
whose training in the Normal Schools would offset, in a large 
measure, the inexperience now so commonly found in the one-room 
country schools. 

Another result of the larger schools is the distribution of the 
work of the several grades so as to allow longer recitation periods. 
An examination of the daily program of the average one-teacher 
school shows from twenty-five to forty recitations per day with 
from five to twelve minutes devoted to each recitation. The con- 
dition is ridiculous. By no possibility could efficient work be done 
by even the best of teachers with such a handicap. The consoli- 
dation of one-teacher schools would distribute the work of the 
pupils so as to obviate this difficulty. A school of three teachers 
could do more teaching and infinitely better teaching than could 
be done for the same pupils in five, or even six, one-teacher schools. 

The introduction of Industrial education in the country schools 
to any considerable extent is hopelessly impossible under the pres- 
ent conditions. Schools employing several teachers would have 
the resources with which to provide laboratories; and at least one 
teacher, with special training, could direct all or a greater part 
of the industrial work. Since 95 per cent of all the pupils in the 
country schools of Texas do not even reach the high school, voca- 
tional training should be an integral part of the curriculum in 
the lower grades. The large field of information relative to agri- 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 39 

culture and to home economics cannot find its way to the farms 
of the country except through the avenue of the public school. 
The readjustment of the school to enable it to do its share in 
developing an efficient farm life will have far-reaching results, 
and it is feasible only through consolidation. 

Let it be borne in mind also that the provision of high schools 
for country children depends entirely on the consolidation of small 
schools. Four hundred and fifty thousand white children now in 
this state cannot attend high schools without leaving the farm. 
It is no wonder that only 5 per cent of them ever enter the high 
school when the incentive for further advancement sufEers such 
miserable limitations. And this lamentable condition will con- 
tinue until the high school is brought within an accessible distance 
of the child's home. Eeliable records of consolidated schools in 
other states show that now twice as many pupils finish the eighth 
grade as in the same districts before consolidation. Aside from 
the discrimination involved, it is more economical to maintain high 
schools that would be accessible to all the children, through the 
consolidated plan, than to carry 5 per cent of them away from 
their homes to boarding schools. 

The effect of consolidation upon attendance, tardiness, and dis- 
cipline shows remarkably encouraging results. The bleak, dismal, 
lonely atmosphere of the one-teacher school is transformed into one 
of enthusiasm and inspiration. Statistics show that the average 
daily attendance after districts have been consolidated is twenty- 
seven per cent higher than in the same districts before consoli- 
dation. In addition to these advantages there is no way to esti- 
mate the unlimited possibilities for good to the community from a 
larger social, religious, and economic organization. 

Transportation a Complement of Consolidation. 

A necessary complement of consolidation is the transportation 
of pupils at public expense. Especially is this true where children 
reside at distances of three miles or more from the schoolhouse. 
Two plans prevail for providing transportation: first, payment of 
a monthly sum to pupils wild furnish private vehicles; second, the 
purchase of a wagon by the school district. Where the number 
of pupils to be transported justifies it, the latter plan has been 



30 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

found far more satisfactory. When the wagon is driven by a com- 
petent person, pupils may be conveyed for five or six miles with- 
out the physical exposure or the immoral influences incident to 
walking short distances. In fact, bad roads and severe climate 
may be additional incentives for transportation. To say the least, 
they retard attendance even in the small school. It is true that 
transportation increases the expenses of the school; but the money 
?avod in a lower cost of instruction in the larger schools will partly 
cover this additional outlay. If the consolidated school and the 
transportation of pupils furnish the only means of educating the 
children adequately, the "economy" that omits or neglects them 
is calamitous. 

Concrete Examples in Texas Schools. 

The high cost and the poor results of maintaining small one- 
teacher schools is exemplified in the table on the opposite page. 
And at the same time the efficiency of the larger schools is alsa 
to be observed. The table is a comparison of statistics between 
the average for several large country schools and that for several 
small country schools in each of three separate counties for the 
scholastic year 1913-14. For its compilation, only average schools 
conducted under normal conditions were chosen. In every instance 
the length of the school term for the larger schools is greater 
than that for the smaller ones in the same county, being ten days 
longer in Milam county, twenty-five days longer in Bell county, 
and thirty days longer in Van Zandt county. Notwithstanding 
the longer terms, the per cent of average daily attendance to- 
enrollment is higher for the larger schools than for the smaller 
ones in the same county, being 10.7 per cent higher in Milam 
county, 6.1 per cent higher in Bell county, and 14.7 per cent higher 
in Van Zandt county. It will also be observed that the average 
daily cost per pupil in attendance is lower for the larger schools 
than for the smaller ones in the same county, being 3 mills lower 
in Milam county, 4.1 cents lower in Bell county, and 3.9 cents 
lower in Van Zandt county. 

These facts are strong evidence of the general excellence of con- 
solidated schools in three typical counties in Texas. But there 
was actually accomplished more than these figures indicate. High 



.4 Study of Bural Schools in Texas 



31 



Large Schools vs. Small Sch 


ools 




Per cent of 
Average daily 

Attendance 
to Enrollment 


Length 

of School 

Terra 

In Days 


Daily C»st 

per 

Pipit 

in Cents 


Milam County 

Average for Six Three-Teacher 
Schools 


63.9 
53.2 


135 
125 


13.2 
13.5 


Average for Seven One-Teacher 
Schools 




Bell County 

Average for Four Three-Teacher 
Schools 


69.9 
63.8 


112 

87 


11.1 
15.2 


Average for Four One-Teacher 
Schools 




Van Zandt County 

Average for Three Four-Teacher 
Schools 


64.5 
49.8 


125 
95 


11.7 
15.6 


Average for Eight One-Teacher 

Schools . 




Small Schools mean high cost, short terms, and 
low attendance. 

Large Schools mean moderate cost, long terms, 
and high attendance. 

Which is the Better Investment? 



32 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

aehool opportiinities, longer recitation periods, and better teachers 
were provided in all the larger schools. 



Progress of Consolidation and Transportation in Texas. 



Until an investigation was recently instituted by the Department 
of Extension of the University, no accurate data as to the extent 
of consolidation and transportation in Texas were available. A 
qu^tionnaire requesting detailed information was sent to county 
superintendents and ex-oflBcio county superintendents, and 123 re- 
sponses were received. Considering the great number of populous 
eoTinties represented in the 123 answers, it is estimated that the 
data cover about 70 per cent of the country schools of the state. 

The information thus gathered covers a period of four years, 
beginning September 1, 1910; and concerns the consolidation of 
two or more schools in the same district by local trustees, and the 
consolidation of two or more districts by commissioners' courts and 
county boards of education. These 123 counties have efEected 1-18 
consolidations, which resulted in the abandonment of 155 schools. 
More than four-fifths of this work was confined to twenty-three 
counties, which made 112 consolidations that resulted in the aban- 
donment of 122 schools. The counties taking the lead are Bastrop, 
Bell, Bexar, Brazos, Comanche, Coryell, Eastland, Ellis, Falls, 
Fannin, Gillespie, Harris, Hunt, Jack, Jones, Johnson, Medina, 
Milam, McLennan, Parmer, Shelby, Taylor, Williamson. It is 
noteworthy that a large number of the consolidations were made 
by county boards of education under the provisions of the Eural 
High School Law. In some instances a consolidation was effected 
primarily for high school purposes, and while there is a complete 
union of districts, the old schools continue either as primary or 
as intermediate schools. 

Pacts adduced show that consolidation is not needed in many 
of the counties of West Texas because the present districts are 
large enough. But the possibilities for further work are indicated 
by the fact that the 123 counties report 337 districts with an area 
of less than nine square miles each. Several counties have forty 
or more of such districts. One county has 115 districts which 
irerage less than seven square miles apiece. The utter impossi- 
bility of eflficient high schools is shown by the information that 



A Study of Rural Schools hi Texas 



33 



Free Iransportation of Pupils in 
Country Schools 


NAME OF COUNTY 


No. of Districts 


No. of Pupils 


No. of Wagoos 


Monthly Cost 
per Wagon 

$37.50 


Brazoria. 


1 


65 


6 


Cameron 


1 


45 


2 


$25.00 


Galveston 


1 


20 


1 


$40.00 


Hansford 


1 


No in- 
formation 






Harris 


5 


196 


6 


$31.00 


Jasper 


1 


70 


2 


$37.50 


Motley 


1 


64 


2 


$40.00 


Parmer 


3 


22 


3 


$20.00 


Travis 


1 


20 


No information 


THE COUNTRY SCHOOLS OF TEXAS 

Should be transporting not less than 75,000 High School 

Pupils. 



34 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

all the 123 counties together report only 137 instances of a count ly 
school that employs as many as four teachers. The following are 
given as the principal obstacles to consolidation: Local prejudice, 
community feuds, bad roads, cost of transportation, location of the 
schoolhouse, lack of information, desire of each man for a school- 
house at its door, opposition of big land owners, sparsely settled 
eommimities, bonded school districts, obstinacy of the commission- 
ers' court, lack of power given to the county board. 

Facts about transportation at public expense, given in detail on 
the opposite page, need no explanation. These counties are to be 
congratulated upon having taken the initiative in this movement. 
Let it be said unreservedly that the transportation of pupils at 
the expense of school districts must become a fundamental part of 
our public school system. 

Needed Legislation fur Consolidated ScJiools. 

If the facts thus arrayed demonstrate the expediency of consoli- 
dation, then consolidation should be made a matter of immediate 
state concern. It can be liastened by the enactment of a small 
amount of coiistructive legislation along proper lines. Those who 
liavc had practical field experience know the difficulty of bringing 
about changes. People will agree to the wisdom of consolidation 
as an abstract proposition; but they are slow to act in putting it 
to the actual test, and show a sentimental regret at parting com- 
pany with the little schoolhouse near them. All that is needed is 
an incentive that stirs them to action. Minnesota, Missouri, Iowa, 
and New Jersey have partially solved the problem by giving state 
aid upon certain conditions. For example, Iowa gives $250 for 
equipment and $200 annually for maintenance to each consolidated 
school of two rooms teaching agriculture and home economics, or 
other vocational subjects approved by the state superintendent; to 
schools of three rooms, $350 and $500, respectively; to schools of 
four rooms, $500 and $500, respectively. The enactment of a law 
giving state aid to the consolidation of small school districts in 
Texas ivould unquestionahly accomplish tangible results without 
delay. 

Difficulties are often met in consolidating districts when there 
are outstanding bonds against one or more of the districts involved. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 35 

( 

The will of the people in effecting a consolidation is often thwarted 
to satifef}- a technical demand of the laAv. The laiu should he 
amended so as to permit the county hoard of education to consoli- 
date districts, even though some of the districts have outstanding 
honds. In most cases it would doubtless be advisable for the con- 
solidated district to assume by an election the bonded indebtedness 
previous^ incurred by any individual district, the title for such 
property being then vested in the newly consolidated district. It 
is the opinion of the attorney general that the legislature could 
delegate to the county board the right of making consolidations 
under these conditions. 

Future of the Consolidated School. 

The tendency of the times in the country generally, and in Texas 
as well, is unmistakably toward consolidation. Already has been 
sounded the death-knell of the small one-teacher and two-teacher 
schools. They have served nobly in the vanguard of our civili- 
zation. Now they must go. They no longer serve the needs of 
the day. We are not going to perpetuate an institution ancient, 
outworn, outgrowm, sadly deficient, when we have at hand a mod- 
ern one of proved efficiency. The extent of consolidation in the 
future is prophesied by Mr. Geo. W. Knorr, an eminent authority 
on the subject, as follows: 

"Ultimately about 250,000 small rural schools in the open coun- 
try Avill yield to the pressure of new social and economic condi- 
tions and go into consolidation in groups of six to ten, forming 
about 25,000 country life institutions known as consolidated schools 
or country life schools. The remaining 80,000 district schools 
will continue as such in all places where topographical and geo- 
graphical conditions will not permit consolidation and conveyance 
of pupils, but they will be vitalized and benefited by the spirit of 
the consolidated schools from which will come the majority of 
their teachers." 



36 Bulletin of the University of Texas 



IV. RURAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION. 

Successful country schools are impossible without efficient ad- 
uiinistration. For many reasons tlie logical unit for such admin- 
istration in Texas is the county. The perfection of our present 
system of rural Rchool organization is conditioned upon two im- 
portant and overshadowing factors : first, the provision of com- 
petent supervision in all tlie counties; second, a proper recognition 
of the functions of tlie county board of education. 

COUXTY SUPEIIVISTOX. 

Extension of Supervision to All Counties. 

It is deplorable tliat more than half the counties of the state 
have no supervision save that given l)etween the sessions of the 
county court or commissioners' court, or between various business 
transactions, by the county judge, who is not supposed to know 
any more about advising teachers than about directing the en- 
gineers in the construction of the Panama Canal. Not long ago 
a county judge who has filled the office for many years with dis- 
tinguished ability remarked that he had as little as j^ossible to do 
with the State Department of Education at Austin. This county 
judge and ex-officio superintendent deserves to be commended for 
his frankness. Although there are perhaps in the Avhole state half 
a dozen county judges who are successful administrators of edu- 
cational affairs, the attitiule of the one just mentioned represents 
the prevalent distaste which the average county judge has for mat- 
ters relating to school administration. 

Children residing in the less populous counties are entitled to 
as good schools as other children, and this condition is not possible 
witiiout supervision. The law should be amended so that every 
county hdving a scholastic popnlation of 2000 ivoulcl he required 
to have a county super iniendeut; and counties having a scholastic 
population of fewer than 2000 should be grouped so that from' two 
to three counties would he required jointly to employ a county 
superintendent. 



A Study of Rural ScJiools in Texas 37 

Wrong Method of Choosing the County Superintendent. 

The present method of choosing the county superintendent at 
regular primary elections is a matter that deserves serious criti- 
cism. It not only prescribes a political qualification for an edu- 
cational office; it also involves what should bo an educational posi- 
tion of dignity in all the petty political scrambles that operate in 
the election of political offices in the county, district, and state. 
To secure the nomination a candidate is often required to nego- 
tiate with contending factions which invite opportunity for the 
trading and manipulation of votes. Frequently his church affil- 
iation, or degree of poverty, or physical disability, or readiness to 
shake hands and pass insincere compliments, or other condition 
or knack entirely foreign to professional fitness, is allowed to 
determine the result of the campaign. When the nominations are 
made, tliere may be a Democratic candidate, a Republican can- 
didate, and a Socialist candidate, not one of wliom has any 
qualifications for the office of county superintendent except 
tliat he is his party's nominee. After the election the successful 
candidate, grateful to his constituents and remembering the next 
approaching campaign, consumes much time in laying plans that 
will insure his re-election. In the meanwhile the schools are being 
neglected, and the most important office in the county has become 
the prey of demagoguery, the cost of which is defrayed by the 
county's innocent, unsuspecting, and helpless children. Fortu- 
nately these conditions do not obtain in the majority of the coun- 
ties, but they do exist, and the mere possibility of tlieir existence 
constitutes the greatest stigma upon the present school system of 
Texas. 

Again, the method of election makes uncertain the tenure of 
office, regardless of tlie increased efficiency incident to length of 
service. It is a matter of common knowledge that many of the 
best qualified and most ambitious county superintendents have 
within the past five years voluntarily resigned the office at the 
first favorable opportunity because they knew full well that no 
amount of efficient service would guarantee permanency of posi- 
tion. An examination of the records extending to the close of the 
present term shows that long tenure is confined to a few counties. 
Of the 120 county superintendents now in office, 55 liave served 



38 Bulletin of Hie University of Texas 

only two years or less. In 96 counties the average tenure has been 
only 2.3 years. The average for all the counties is -i.15 years. 
Conditions in past years were no better than now. That is to say, 
our present system of choice by political election gives the average 
county superintendent a season of service that corresponds with 
the populistic doctrine of two terms in office and no more. In fact, 
the two-term practice is so well established in some sections that 
superintendents do not dare to offer for a third time. The rule 
worke both ways in that an election is a guarantee, even to the 
mo:-t incompetent, of the customary Democratic courtesy of four 
years in office. It is well known that the first two years are largely 
consumed in learning the details in the office and in becoming 
acquainted with the people, teachers, and pupils of the various 
districts, leaving only the last two years or less for unhampered 
service. 

The exercise of recognized business economy in the expenditure 
of the children's money demands the inauguration of a system 
whereby the efficient county superintendent may be retained so 
long as his services are the best available^ and whereby the incom- 
petent county superintendent cannot be imposed upon the children 
nwrely to comply with an established political tenure of four years. 

Correct Method of Choosing the County Superintendent. 

The only correct solution of this problem lies in the selection 
of the county superintendent In' a board, allowing the board to 
seek beyond the borders of the county if a more competent person 
is elsewhere available. Xo well informed citizen would now con- 
tend that the teacher of any school or the superintendent of a city 
school should be elected by the people at the regular primary elec- 
tion from the limited material available in the district or county; 
nor would anyone argue that the heads and faculty members of 
state educational institutions should be thus elected. If the prin- 
ciple is right that the 20,000 teachers now filling the various 
educational positions in Texas should be chosen by boards, why 
should not the same method apply with equal force to the selection 
of county superintendents ? Each member of a board of five would 
feel the weight of a large personal responsibility in the selection 
of a county superintendent; but when this duty is delegated to five 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 39 

or six thousand voters, the sense of personal responsibility is so 
diluted that few persons feel it seriously. In the Eighteenth Bi- 
ennial Report of the State Department of Education, former State 
Superintendent F. M. Bralley forcefully summarizes the advan- 
tages of electing county superintendents by county boards of edu- 
cation in these words: 

"This method would have a tendency (1) to take the office of 
county superintendent out of the whirlpool of county politics ; 
(2) to make it unnecessary' for the county superintendent to spend 
three or four months every two years in making a political cam- 
paign for an educational position; (3) to enable the countv super- 
intendent to concentrate his time and his efforts in behalf of edu- 
cational improvement and service; (-1) to permit the choosing of 
a county superintendent on the basis of qualifications and ability 
to render service; (5) to eliminate the present two-term custom 
which obtains with controlling force, regardless of qualifications 
and service rendered, in a large majority of the counties of this 
state; (6) to retain the county superintendent in the service of 
the school as long as he renders efficient, acceptable service; (7) to 
dignify the office of county superintendent by attracting to it per- 
sons of special fitness and qualifications; an-d (8) to make the 
work of the county superintendent a profession, therel)y placing 
it upon the same basis with that of the work of the city super- 
intendent." 

The argument herein set forth is recognized as being funda- 
mentally sound by practically all leading school authorities. By 
resolutions the Texas State Teachers' Association has unanimously 
approved this method of electing county superintendents. In Jan- 
uarv, 1912, the executive committee of the association succeeded 
in having introduced into the Thirty-third Legislature a bill in 
accordance with these resolutions. There is little doubt but that 
the bill which, without serious opposition, was given favorable 
report by the Committee on Education in both the House and the 
Senate, would have passed the Legislature but for the crowded con- 
dition of the calendar which precluded its consideration. The 
principle of this method of selecting county superintendents is 
now embodied in the laws of several of the states, — Louisiana, Iowa, 
and Ohio being araono- the latest to adopt it. 



40 Bulletin of tlie University of Texas 

Inadequate Salaries. 

In perfecting tlie plan of rural school supervision, the matter 
of the county superintendent's salar}' must be borne in mind. The 
present maximum of $1,500 is insufficient to retain the services of the 
best school men. This salary, after deducting campaign expenses and 
transportation expenses in visiting the schools, is about equivalent 
to a .$1"200 position in the town schools. Further, the latter posi- 
tion gives the advantage of a vacation or an opportunity for sum- 
mer school work or study. The county board of education should 
he authorized to determine the superintendent's salary from year 
to year just as the district hoards of trustees now determine the 
salaries of teachers and superintendents. 

Need of Clerical Help. 

Efficiency in the office of the county superintendent would be 
further increased by the provision of clerical help in the more 
populous counties. Much of the county superintendent's time is 
necessarily consumed in the performance of small details which 
could be done by a less expensive person. Putting a fifteen hun- 
dred dollar man at a three hundred dollar job is not economy. 
Office details must receive attention. But we should discontinue 
a blundering and short-sighted extravagance that compels the 
county superintendent to neglect the larger educational problems 
of his field. Each county hoard of education should at least he 
permitted to exercise discretion as to whether or not clerical help 
should he provided for the county superintendent. 

From the standpoint of needed laws governing the office of 
county superintendent, the foi-egoing discussion may be summar- 
ized as follows : The largest single measure of constructive school 
legislation which the Thirty-fourth Legislature could enact would 
be that of extending county supervision to all counties and of 
making the county superintendent a professional school officer 
selected by the couniy hoard at such salary as his services warrant. 

State Appohtionment for Country High Schools. 

The Rural High School Law enacted by the Thirty-second Legis- 
lature represents a constructive step in the history of pulilic edu- 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 41 



TENURE OF OFFICE 



OF 



County Superintendents in Texas 



120 COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS. 

55 HAVE SERVED FOR TWO YEARS 
OR LESS. 

96 HAVE SERVED AN AVERAGE OF 
2.3 YEARS. 

96 HAVE SERVED ONLY AS MANY 
YEARS AS THE REMAINING 24. 

Long tenure is usually found in the few counties 
where the two-term practice does not prevail for 
political offices. 



SOLUTION LIES IN SEPARATION 

OF 

SCHOOLS AND POLITICS 



■42 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

cation; but the difficulties encountered have required tedious nego- 
tiations, the result of which lias limited the benefits to be derived. 
These difficulties could be easily obviated, and the law accomplish 
in every county all that was contemplated, by extending and defin- 
ing more accurately the jurisdiction of the county board of edu- 
cation. 

Creation, Changing, and Consolidation of Districts. 

Under the present law there is a dual authority dealing with 
the creation and consolidation of school districts. The commis- 
sioners' court is given authority to create districts, and to change 
the boundaries of districts. The county board is authorized to 
consolidate school districts for high school purposes. Instances 
are of record where these two authorities have come into serious 
conflict, where the county board has effected a consolidation which 
the commissioners' court subsequently attempted to destroy. As 
A rule, the commissioners' court is too busily engaged in other 
business affairs to give proper attention to school matters, and 
■often its actions are determined by political considerations. On 
the other hand, the county board whose business is devoted solely 
to school matters is in a better position to know what the schools 
need. Moreover, the latter body is a non-political body, whose 
actions are independent of other questions. Tliis dual autliority 
is unnecessary and confusing, and a law should he enacted vesting 
solely in the county board of education all authority to create, 
change, or consolidate school districts. 

Appropriations for High Schools. 

Another confusing provision of the Eural High School Law is 
that relating to the transfer of funds for high school purposes. 
The cost of high school instruction is necessarily more than the 
cost of instruction for the primary and intermediate grades. The 
small one-teacher and two-teacher schools do not, as a rule, object 
to the transfer of high school pupils, but they often protest bitterly 
against the transfer of funds from the apportionment that has 
been made to their districts. The county board is confronted on 
the one hand with the duty of providing competent instruction for 
high school pupils, and on the other hand with no funds what- 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 43 

soever except by confiscation of the money which has already been 
apportioned to the several districts. As a result, friction is often 
engendered between the county board and the local boards of trus- 
tees, the outcome of which is generally the failure to provide high 
school advantages for high school pupils. Even if the operation 
of the law did not carry the odium of ill feeling, its enforcement 
would still l)e cumbersome since every pupil transferred requires 
a negotiation by one board iDctween the other two boards. 

Facts here given show conclusively that the provision of high 
school facilities would become several times as effective if the 
county board were given each year a comparatively small appro- 
priation for the specific purpose of arranging for the tuition of 
high school pupils. A small part of the state available school 
funds could be apportioned to the several counties in lump sum 
without reducing materially the usual per capita apportionment. 
This plan would enable the county board to transfer pupils of 
high school advancement to the larger, centralized communities 
without unnecessary friction. The use of this apportionment 
should, whenever necessary, be restricted to the purposes desig- 
nated. An amendment of the law giving a small part of the state 
apportionment to the county hoard for high school purposes, will 
greatly facilitate the work of the county board in providing coun- 
trii high schools at convenient places throughout the county. 



44 Bulletin of the Universiti/ of Texas 



V. THE RURAL CHURCH. 

The industrial, social, educational, and religious activities of 
nn-al life are so mutually interrelated with and interdependent 
upon each other that this pamphlet would he incomplete without 
some mention of the rural church. AVhile it was not the purpose 
of this stud_y to make an intensive church survey, the field agents 
were instructed to gather all the information they could bearing 
upon the. conditions of the rural church in the counties visited. 
This was done through conferences with pastors, laymen, and 
church officials of approximately 125 rural church communities. 
Time did not permit the compilation of any very extensive data, 
but a sufficient amount of information was gathered to warrant 
some fairly definite conclusions. Tliese are summarily mentioned 
as follows: 

(a) Church Growth and Material Development. In those 
parts of the state where the rural population is increasing rapidly 
and a majority of tlie people own their homes, the country churches 
are prospering and growing in membership more than in those 
sections where the growth in population is less and a high per- 
centage of tenancy obtains; e. g., in Collin county, where there 
has been a falling off of 2.1 per cent in population diiring the past 
decade and 68.9 per cent of tlie farmers are tenants, 21 out of 33 
rural churches observed are suffering for want of paint and win- 
dow panes; while in Nacogdoches county, where there has been an 
increase of 10 per cent in population during the past ten years 
and 60.1 per cent of the white farmers own their homes, most of 
the country church buildings are in much better condition. 

(b) The Village Church vs. the Country Church. In the most 
densely populated portions of the state, particularly in the black 
land counties, there are numerous small villages that range iH' 
size from 500 to 1200 ])eop]e. Most of these little towns have 
well equipped churcJi plants and some of them maintain resident 
pastors for full time. When tlie roads permit, many of tlie thrift- 
ier people of the surrounding country drive into town on Sunday 
to attend services. This takes away from the counti'y churclies 
many of those who are ablest to support tliem, and generates a 
feeling of class consciousness on the part of tlie poorer ones, who 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 45 

resent the idea of going to town to church, whicli in some instances 
is causing rural cliurch depletion and a high percentage of church- 
less countr}' people. 

(e) Underpaid Ministr;/. The poor pay for rui'al pastors is 
due to two causes: first, the general need for education on the 
part of the laymen in giving ; second, weakness and lack of ability 
in leadership on the part of the pastors. At A., in east Texas, 
Eev. B. preached to a small Baptist church for an entire year with- 
out pay. One member at the close of the year proposed that a 
subscription he taken for Rev. B. The amount of $55 was very 
punctually subscribed, and more could have l^een raised easily, but 
Eev. B. exclaimed, "That's enough." Maybe it was, and possibly 
too much. But this remains sure, that on the average the count ri/ 
man gives /t^s«, and gots less for ivhat he gives, than the citi/ church 
member. 

(d) Absentee Pastors. In each of the live counties investi- 
gated, practically 100 per cent of the country preachers had two 
or more pastorates^some as high as five. A large majority of the 
churches have non-resident ministers. No pastor, e\en though he 
be an able one, can give his church adecpiate direction if he does 
not live among it.- members. He may start good things, but it 
is hard to keep them going when he is .al)sent most of the time. 
When he pays his usual monthly visit he finds only a cold trail 
of what was started the month previous. Churches do not thrive 
on absent treatment. 

(e) Over-churching. The church surveys tliat have been made 
at the instance of the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian 
•Church in Ohio, Missouri, and Tennessee show very conclusively 
that the small church is a dying church. Though the committee 
that gathered the material for this IniUetin was limited both as to 
time and means, and could not take an extensive rural church 
census as it desired to do, it has ample reasons for believing that 
the average small church in Texas is just as inefficient as it is 
elsewhere. At some places in the more populous counties there 
are too many small, weak churches. Xot uncommonly a village 
of five hundred people will have fi'oin three to five churches when 
it is not physically and financially able to support more than one. 
This is a waste of means and a dissipation of energy. In many 
instances consolidation is as essential to the success and ivell being 



46 Bulletin of tJie University of Texas 

of the cliurch as school consolidation is to the schools. The future 
would be brighter for the smaller Protestant churches if they could 
see their way clear to put aside some of their petty sectarian dif- 
ferences and federate under the broad-minded leadership of a 
capable resident pastor for worship and for work in bettering their 
community. In some instances the consolidation of churches in 
the same denomination would solve the difficulty. To perform its 
mission in the fullest sense the country church must be a commu- 
nity church rather than a denominational church. 

(f) Sectarianism. Interdenominational religious debates are 
quite common and almost universally productive of hard feeling 
and unnecessary discord. Many concrete instances might be given 
where congregations of the same faith have been split over the 
most trivial theological questions. The following case is a typical 
one : A country church in Texas, after much bitterness manifested 
among its membei's, divided and formed two churches over the 
question. "Who made the devil?"' Whoever made this evil mon- 
ster, the actions of these followers of Christ indicate conclusively 
that there was not only a devil, but that he was abundantly present 
in the community at the time and place mentioned. The people 
of this church might have profitably united to fight the devil in- 
stead of dividing in the endeavor to find his source and cause. 

(g) Broad-minded Ministry. At a small village in Bosque 
county the boys and young men had formed a civic league for the 
purpose of improving, beautifying, and making the place more 
sanitary. At a meeting of this league when a member of the De- 
partment of Extension of the University was present, the local 
pastor sat on one side of the president and the public school prin- 
cipal on the other. This represented a healthy unity of interests. 
The preacher was the main moving spirit in this good work for 
the betterment of the physical well being of his fellow men. The 
same important infiuence could be exercised by hundreds of other 
ministers in their respective communities. Christ ministered to 
both the physical and the spiritual wants of his followers. He fed 
the hungry and healed the blind as well as cast out unclean spirits. 

A German pastor who was taking the lead in establishing a 
rural credit association for his community justified hi:? action by 
saying : "It is better for me to do what I can to prevent my 
neighbor from becoming poor than to wait until he is poor and 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 



47 



"then pass around the hat for charity."' Tlie same might be said 
with regard to his neighbor's health. Too many pastors concern 
themselves entirely with the spiritual welfare of their flocks. They 
should be the civic and social leaders as well as the spiritual ad- 
visers of their communities. They should be preachers and broad- 
minded citizens at the same time. For example, a minister who' 
accepted the three-fold relation to his community of county farmi 
demonstrator, commercial secretarj^, and pastor, said if he worked 
well in the first two positions for six days in the week, then told 
about it on Sunday, his congregations never M'ent to sleep because 




It is a sad fact that a large per cent of the country churches presented 
such an uninviting appearance on the outside as to make improb- 
able any considerable spiritual enthusiasm on the inside. 

of dry sermons. This statement may not be entirely orthodox, but 
it at least shows that ministers are endowed with ordinary human 
instincts and that sermons need not he so mysterious as to exclude 
the common events of men's lives. 

Let not these statements be construed as a failure to appreciate 
the services which tlie country ministers of the various denomina- 
tions have given. The life of the average minister has been one 
of sacrifice, consecration, and devotion to duty. Our civilization 



48 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

is under a lasting debt to the church and its influence; and the 
need for the leaven of the church will l)ecome larger with the 
progress of the future. 

(h) Social Activities. "So far as church social recreation is 
concerned," said a i)astor in the town of Nacogdoches, "\'ou will 
get a water haul in this count}'. Absolutely nothing is being done." 
This seems to be generally true throughout the state. Pastors and 
•church members do not seem to realize that people go wrong mostly 
■during their leisure hours; and that if right social diversion and 
recreation are not provided for Iheni they will take what they can 
get, and this is often the most contaminating sort. Cheap shows 
and the most questionable kinds of commercialized entertainments 
-continue to flourish because there is nothing better to take their 
places. The church and the church people have no unworked field 
so fertile with the possibilities for good as that of providing the 
means for healthy, wholesome, social recreation; yet it is almost' 
entirely neglected, and in many places because of narrow-minded- 
ness and religious bigotry is well nigh iinpracticable. 

(i) Church Buildings. In the observations made, the appear- 
ance of the physical church plant in most cases indicated a lower 
standard and a less degree of community pride than did the school- 
house. Many communities maintaining new and well kept school 
buildings had at the same time one or two dilapidated churches 
which gave evidence of general neglect. In only a few instances 
were the churches of a higher standard than their own school- 
houses, such cases being confined as a rule to communities where 
most people were affiliated with the same church and a parsonage 
was maintained in connection with it. The standards were more 
nearly equal in east Texas, where the churches were better and 
the schoolhouses poorer than in other sections of the state. It is 
a sad fact that a large per cent of the country churches presented 
such an uninviting appearance on the outside as to make improb- 
able any considerable spiritual enthusiasm on the inside. While 
the spirituality of a church cannot be determined by the exterior 
or interior beauty of its building, if is certainly true that the 
church building must be made an attractive model of comfort, 
sanitation, and pjrogress if the church institution is to hold its 
influence as a factor for community betterment. 



A Sludij of Rural Schools in Tcrat 



4'.) 




HAl'TIST CHURCH AT THE LITTLE TOWN OF ANNA IN COLLIN COUNTY. 




WALNUT GROVE I'RESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 



The nnly rural clunch in Collin cinmty that maintains a resident j^jastor 

for full time. 



50 BuUciin of the University of Texas 

VI. THE RUEAL SCHOOLS OF HARRIS COUNTY. 
(The Banner Public School Count)- of Texas.) 

Hiatory, Location, and Economic Status. 

Harris county was organized in 1837, and constituted one of tiie 
original counties of the state. Harrisburg, now a suburb of the 
city of Houston, the county site of Harris count}^, was one time 
the temporary capital of the Texas Republic. About twenty miles 
from Houston on the west bank of the San Jacinto River is the 
historic San Jacinto battlefield, where Texas' independence was 
decided by General Sam Houston's victory over Santa Anna's 
Mexican troops, April 21, 1836. 

Harris county borders on Galveston Bay, in the southeastern 
part of the state, and lies entirely within the coastal-plains belt. 
It has an area of 1761 square miles, and the surface is so level 
that in many places artificial drainage is necessary. It is traver.-ied 
by numerous sluggish creeks and bayous wdth deep muddy chan- 
nels that were in an early day a very great hindrance to travel. 

The land where it is sandy and underlaid with light clay sub- 
soil is often thin and lacking in fertility. Possibly more than 
half of the county is of this nature. Most of it is covered with 
a growth of pine, oak, and gum timber, and in many places saw- 
mills are operated. In those portions where the soil is of the 
deep black waxy sort and is properly drained it yields abundant 
crops. 

Corn, cotton, rice, fruit, and garden vegetables are the principal 
products. A considerable area is devoted to truck growing and 
diversified farming. In those sections where the soil is good and 
tlie roads have been improved so as to give practical access to the 
markets, there are many small farms devoted to the production 
of fruit, early vegetables, berries, and melons. 

In connection with these truck farms a dairy and poultry busi- 
ness is quite often conducted on a small scale. Much attention 
is given to the breeding of fine dairy cattle and the raising of 
good chickens. For the most part, the small poultry yards and 
dairv barns are maintained for the purpose of supplying eggs,. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 51 

milk, cream, and butter to the city of Houston, while the larger 
dairy farms supply the creameries at Houston and Alvin. 

Relatively speaking, the Harris county farmers enjoy a high 
degree of economic independence. Most of them own their land,. 
and produce the larger portion of their living at home. Of all 
the farms in the county, 74.3 per cent are operated by their own- 
ers, and of these 77.9 per cent are free from all mortgage debts. 
This contrasts very sharply with some of the counties in the rich 
lilack land belt of the state where as high as 70 out of each 100 
farmers do not own the land they cultivate ; where a one-crop 
system dominates, and most of the people look to the town grocery 
store for all they eat, and a majority of their children attend rural 
schools that are but little less than deplorable. 

The success of the Harris county common schools is in part 
attributable to the unusually large percentage of home owners in 
the county. Tlce freeholder with a 'permanent home will nat- 
urally enter into the life of the community more freely and enthu- 
siastically than the roving tenant farmer who seldom stays at one 
place long enough to get himself thoroughly identified with the 
church, school, and civic interests of the neighborhood. The home- 
less man is at best limited very materially in his usefulness as a 
citizen. He may be a good school patron, but the exhilarating 
stimulus of home ownership would make him a better one. 

It might be well to note that home getting in Harris county has 
so far been relatively a very easy matter. Though land constitutes 
72.9 per cent of the entire wealth of the count}^, it can still be 
bought at reasonably low prices. Unimproved land can be had 
for $2.5 to $50 per acre, and improved land for $30 to $100 per 
acre. 'At present less than 14 per cent of all the land has been 
taken for agricultural purposes, and the rural population is less 
than 26 persons per square mile. Note the difference in Collin 
county : All the land except a few overflowing creek bottoms is in 
cultivation; prices range from $80 to $225 per acre; tlie rural 
population is 49 persons per square mile, and 69 farmers in every 
100 are tenants. 



52 Bulletin of the U.nivcrsitu of Texas 

Market Facilities, Roads, and Transportation. 

No coimty in the ?tate is better supplied with all the agencies 
of modern transportation. Houston is served by eleven steam 
railways and one internrban car line. They approach it from all 
points of the compass. The county has been formed into a navi- 
gation district, and $1/350,000 raised by the issuance of bonds, 
together with a like amount appropriated by the federal govern- 
ment, is being expended on the improvement of Buffalo Bayou 
from Galveston Bay to Harrisburg so as to secure deep-water 
facilities for ocean-going vessels. The county has 305 miles of 
shell roads that have been constructed at a cost of $4500 per mile, 
and recently additional bonds for $1,250,000 were issued for the 
further extension of the same class of highways. In addition, 
there are 2300 miles of well graded dirt roads, costing $150 per 
mile. 

AVhile the railways ha^•e meant much for the making of Houston 
and the industrial development of the outlying districts, these 
country roads have been of inestimable value in bringing about 
the best system of common rural schools to be found anywhere 
in Texas. Good country roads open the way to better country 
schools. Through the agency of good roads the large consolidated 
school districts of Harris county have been made possible, and 
the small, poorly taught, poorly attended country schools have in 
most instances ceased to be a necessity. There are now fifty com- 
mon school districts in the county, with an average area of 32..") 
square miles each. This is more than five times as large as many 
of the districts among the sand roads of the cross timbers, and 
more than ten times the size of some in the black land portions 
of central and north Texas. 

Transportation of Pupils at Public Expense. 

AVith the impiovement of the roads and the consequent enlarge- 
ment of the school units, school boards have seen fit to put on 
wagons operated at public expense to haul the children to and 
from school. Six such conveyances are now in use, and carry 
196 children at an average per capita cost of 94 cents per month. 
Eighty children are carried daily in the large covered van over the 
perfectly level shell road from Magnolia Park to Harrisburg. Each 



A Studii of Rural Schools in 'rc.ras 



53 



child has its regular seat in the wagon, and is directly in charge 
of tlie driver, who is responsible to the school board for its con- 
dnct. The wagon is run on schedule time, and the children reach 
school with dry feet and are never tardy. The people like the 
plan and prefer it to the maintaining of a small school in their 
immediate locality. This wagon is operated at a cost of $37.50 
per month. Economically it is a great saving, to say nothing of 
the increased benefits that come to the children fiom attending 
the large, well equipped, central school. In the same district at 
Park Place, where a small pay school is being kept, the people 




Shell road sixteen miles north of Houston. There are 305 miles like 
this in the countj'. The recent election for the issuance of $1,250,000 of 
additional road bonds was carried by a large majority. The good-roads 
spirit, like the good-school spirit, is contagious. When it once gets well 
started, everybody catches it. 



have recently petitioned for another wagon rather than for a new 
free school. This will make the third wagon of the kind in the 
Harrisburg district. 

District No. 25, just north of Houston, is one of the largest 
common school districts in the state. It has 72 square miles of 
territory, IGil scholastics, seven schools, and 33 teachers. Two 
public wagons are used to carry those who have finished at the 
grammar schools to the large central high school, and one time 



5-4 Bulirtin of the University of Texas 

each week the seventh grade pupils are taken in the same way to 
the high school for instruction in manual training and domestic 
science. In a talk with the principal of one of the grammar 
schools, the question was asked : What about transporting your 
seventh grade pupils to the central high school? He answered, 
"It is just the article. It is stimulating, and gives them a change 
of environment once a week. Then it fosters a love for the 
mother school. Our boA's used to finish here and then go — well, 
I don't know where. Xow they go to the central high school, and 
arc anxious to get there." 

Two years ago the school at Middle Bayou was paying one 
teacher $55 per month. It has since been discontinued, and is 
now transported boflily over the shell road to Seabrook, a distance 
of three and one-half miles, at a net saving of $25 jx^r month to 
llic community. At Addicks, twenty miles north of Houston, one 
of tlie small schools of the district will be closed and transported 
to the large central school when the new shell road is completed. 
Since these children will be distributed among the grades of the 
central school, no additional teacher will be required for them. 
Their instruction is nov/ costing $-liO per year. The transporta- 
tion wagon can be operated the full eight months for $340, and 
thus save $200 for the district. 

"WTien one of the Harrisburg vans passed by containing about 
sixty-five merry school children drawn by a single span of mules, 
an old gardener who lives seven miles from Houston, said : "Well, 
don't you know, liaulin' them kids is just like haulin' my tomatoes. 
You can load your wagon with 'em, but you can't load your team. 
I can pull three times as much now as I could before these roads 
was fixed.*" 

Good roads ckaiupiun the cause of education. A dollar judi- 
ciously expended for road improvement is a dollar expended f^r 
educational and social betterment. 

Clubs, Social Meetings, and Athletic Sports. 

Through the combined efforts of the county farm demonstrator, 
Mr. J. B. Alford, and County Superintendent L. L. Pugh, the 
boys' agricultural club movement is becoming more closely con- 
nected with the school work. Mr. Alford taught in the public 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 



55 






3^S 

_5 T) dp 



r p 

* TQ 



3 ■• 







56 B idle tin of the Uiiiversitii of Texas 

f^chools of Texas for fourteen years, and knows conutry life con- 
ditions thoroughl}'. For tliis reason he is especially well fitted 
for appealing to the boys' industrial instincts through the school. 
He has a fine knowledge of boy nature, a good understanding of 
tiie problems of agriculture and farm management, is a magnetic 
public speaker, and spends most of his time working among the 
country people. He owns a small car, and this, in conjunction 
with the excellent roads, enables him to roach more people pos- 
sibly than any other county farm demonstrator in the state. 

Harris county has thirty-five active' mothers' clubs outside of the 
city of Houston. Most of them are in effect parent-teachers' clubs. 
They have been a tiemendous influence in bettering school condi- 
tions. For the 26 brick buildings, 115 pianos, 200 sanitary toilets, 
and libraries, numerous pictures, and other equipment in the 
common schools, no small portion of the credit \evy justly falls 
to the efforts of the organized mothers and the lady teachers. Tliey 
have assisted in the purchase of most of the pianos, and have acted 
as first aides to the county superintendent in every campaign for 
the sanitation, equipment, and beautifying of the school plants. 

Eural social life in Harris county is not what it should be. The 
"Ocial natures of botli parents and children are generally suffeimg 
from neglect and lack of opportunity. The social instincts on the 
average do' not get a fair chance. Social advantages as a rule are 
not at all in keeping with the substantial brick and frame school 
buildings throughout the county. In many instances this defi- 
ciency is breeding discontent and kindling the townward tendency 
in the minds of the most ambitious country young folks. People 
floe from social stagnation when it stares them in the face. II is 
a perfectly natural thing to shun solitude and seek companionship 
and entertainment. "VAHien the social stimulus is not provided at 
home, people go elsewhere to find it. 

At one school with four teachers, sixteen miles in the countrv, 
there were eight hoys doing high school work, and when asked 
what they meant to do after graduation, the unanimous verdict 
was, "I want to go to Houston to attend the business college and 
ecjuip myself to hold a position in the city." The boys gave no 
partitidar reason for not wanting to stay in the country more than 
that they did iiot like it. Why didn't they like it? The cause 
was not far to seek. Xote the following questions and answers: 



.i Stuchj of Rural Schools in I^e.ras 57 

"What do you do for pastiuie ?"" 

"Well, nothing specially." 

"Have you a ball team?" 

"Yes, but it is mighty weak." 

"When have you had a public gathering of any sort in the school- 
house?" 

"'Not since November. Almost three montbs." 

"What do you do when Sunday comes?" 

"Sometimes we go to cliurcli if there is any." 

"How often do you have church services ?" 

"Once a month at one of the churches, and just whenever they 
can get a preacher at the other one." 

^^^lo can blame tliese boys for not wanting to stay there ? They 
were dying of social hunger. Their discontent and the desire to 
get away are the very strongest evidences that there is really some- 
thing in them inherently worth while. If they had been satisfied 
Math such an environment it would have been because they were 
genuinely stupid fellows. These boys will leave that community, 
and it will be the worse off for their going. They are, in fact, 
the very Ijoys it can. least afford to lose — they are the best it has. 

Thus the town is levying a tiibute on the country which it takes 
each year in tbe foi'm of some of its very best blood. Biologically 
this means a rapid lowering of the life tension and blood ^ i^or 
of the country people. Those remaining behind become the domi- 
nant stock and reproduce their kind for another generation. I' [)on 
these the same sorting process is repeated. The country lias cause 
for alarm. But the normal hoy liJces to he where something is 
happening, and if you luoiild retain him in the cnnntnj you must 
have something doing to Iceep him there. 

The above is an extreme case and by no means typical for the 
entire county. The schoolhouses are being used to some extent 
as- community centers where teachers, parents, and pupils meet 
each other, exchange ideas, and get better acquainted. This is 
true at Dairy, Pasadena, Seabrook, Aldine, and -a number of other 
places. With a better understanding of each other a healthier 
commuuity spirit inevitably follows. Matters of common concern 
are given more attention, and life in the country is made more 
tolerable. As a rule the school interest and tJie educatiomil and 
social ideals of a community can be measured hy the consideration 



58 



BuUeiin of the Univ'.'rsifij of Texas 




Plavtrn.uiKl apparatus at the Berry School, eiglit miles north of Houston. 




Tnterschohistic Atliletic Meet at 1<'ullcrt(>\\ n ychool, Novenilwr, lit 13. 
Five hundred people were present. Dinner was served to the crowd by 
tile gills who were takincr doniestie eeoninny in the school. 



A Study of Rural ^Schools in Texas 59 

which its people give %o the importance of community meetings. 

Recently the University of Texas has launched an organization 
known as the University Home and School League. Its purpose 
is to encourage community co-operation for social, educational, and 
indu^frial betterment through a more intensive use of the school 
plant. The Univer.sity will work in connection with these organi- 
zation? by sending them lecturers, library books, suggestive pro- 
grams, and stereopticon lanterns with slides that pertain to almost 
everything that has to do with the farm, the home, and the school. 
Harris county means to take advantage of this opportunity. Pros- 
pect.« are that it will be the banner Home and School League 
county of the state. At the instance of the county superintendent, 
$l.'30u has been raised by private subscription to secure a trained 
man who will go into the field and give his full time to this woi'k. 

'J'he teachers and parents among the rural and village schools 
are doing much to encourage the right kind of play among the 
children. Through the efforts of the local mothers' clubs the yards 
have been improved, trees planted, sheds built, and swings, hori- 
zontal bars, and other outdoor play apparatus provided at many 
places. The busiest and most active animal in the world is a 
healthy growing child. Children often suffer, and even become 
unruly and incorrigible because their parents and teachers do not 
provide adequate and systematic play. By rightly solving the play 
problem many of the difficulties of both parents and teachers are 
rendered less perplexing. 

To stimulate a lively interest and encourage the spirit of friendly 
rivalrv among the schools, many track meets and interscholastic 
athletic contests have been held during the past. year. Mr. 0. A. 
Heath, president of the county interscholastic league, is himself 
a good athlete, and has done much to make this work successful. 
Possibly nothing has ever done more to create school loyalty and 
keep the older students in school than the contests in baseball, 
basketball, volleyball, and tennis during the past school year. 

Teachers. 

Tliere arc ITS white teachers in the common public schools — 
30 males and 143 females — with an average teaching experience of 
six Tears. Thev hold teachers' certificates as follows: 39 j)erma- 



60 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

nent, 76 first grade, 58 second grade. Theie are 34 teachers who 
are either college or normal graduates, and 21 who have had from 
one to four years of university training ; 93 are teaching the same 
schools they taught last year, and 62 are teaching the same schools 
they taught two years ago. A comparison of figures shows that 
both in academic training and in schoolroom experience the Hnrris 
county teachers are far above the average for the state. 

The accompanying figure shows the relative standing of the 
Harris county teachers as indicated by their certificates. The 
average teaching experience is approximately six years, as against 
approximately four years for the state. While 13.9 per cent of 
the rural teachers of this county are either college or normal grad- 
uates, the average for Texas is 1.1 per cent. It was not possible 
to determine accurately the average time taught at the same place, 
but it is no doubt very short. This is explained by the fact tiiat 
for the past few years there has been a very strong demand for 
capable, well prepared teachers, and this has often necessitated 
going out of the county (frequently to the state normals) to get 
them. As a result, old teachers have been crowded out to give 
place to new and better blood. As a further explanation, for the 
past five or six 3'enrs there has been a great number of teachers 
over the state anxious and even seeking opportunities to locate in 
tliis county. 

Physical Features of the Public Schools. 

Because of the extreme flatness of the country some of the school 
grounds do not drain well, and are badly in need of grading and 
filling in. But in a majority of places, especially at the larger 
central schools, cement walks, lawns, shrubbery, and shade trees 
have been provided. The contests among the schools last year did 
much for the general improving and beautifying of the school 
grounds. The twenty-five dollar prize for the best designed and 
best kept school yard was won by the Harlow School. 

During his ten years of service the present county superintendent 
has made it a rule to work out one or two things well at a time. 
For the past two years a vigorous crusade has been waged against 
the unsightly open closets — breeders of disease and promoters of 
immorality. Tavo hundred of these have been replaced by the 
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Haklow Brick School. 
Won the $25 prize for llie best kept sehool ground in tlie county la:-t yoar. 




Gexoski School, in District No. 25. 

Most of the children are Italians. The shade trees are beiuitifu-l, and 

the premises are well kept. 



64 Bullciin of the University of 'Texas 

The past five yeai's have witnessed some wouderful progress in 
the constrnetiou of school buildings. About fifteen consolidations 
have been made during this time, and many of the old buildings 
have been torn away and replaced by new modern structures. Dur- 
ing the past two and one-half years $325,000 has been expended 
in this way. Though some excellent frame houses have been built, 
most of the new ones are brick. One of the new brick buildings 
is heated throughout with steam, and four of them with the liot- 
air system. About fifty jacketed stoves are in use. The dispo- 
sition of window space for proper lighting in most cases is good. 
As for ventilation, it is not such a serious question so far south, 
where the doors and windows can be thrown open almost every 
day of the year, as it is farther north, where the winters are longer 
and more severe. As to cleanliness and orderliness, practically all 
rooms in the larger schools are kept in good condition. 

All the new schools are equipped with modern furniture. Noth- 
ing but single desks have been installed for the past ten years. 
Every school in the county is well supplied with globes, maps, and 
liyloplate blackboards. But for the most part laboratories for the 
leaching of the natural sciences and the manual and domestic arts 
have not yet been* developed. Even in this respect, however, some 
of the larger schools are well equipped. Three of them (Fuller- 
ton, Hillebrandt, and Harrisburg) have in addition to their gen- 
eral science-laboratory apparatus, a total of thirty-six individual 
work benches with full sets of tools for manual training; seven 
sewing machines for domestic science; and ranges, lockers, and 
such accessory equipment as is necessary to accommodate twenty- 
one girls at a time for cooking lessons. 

Educational Si/steni in Operation. 

As elsewhere in the state, the local school trustees^ the county 
boaid of education, and the commissioners' court are the governing 
boards in the county's school affairs. The distinguishing feature 
in this county is their close and unanimous co-operation with the 
county superintendent. The local boards of trustees are composed 
mainly of men who have a fair degree of business ability. They 
hold all their important business meetings in the county super- 
intendent's office, and for the past eight years a permanent record 



J 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas GT) 

of the minutes of all such meetings has been kept on file for ref- 
erence. This practice is possibly not followed so closely in any 
other county in the state. The county board of education is com- 
posed of five progressive men who are in harmony, and recognize 
the leadership of the county superintendent. To enable the latter 
officer to spend his time in the field visiting /the schools and ad- 
ministering to their needs, the commissioners' court provides him 
a secretary, who attends to all the clerical work of the office. 

In co-operation with the above named boards and officials the 
county physician is rendering some very valuable service to the 
public schools. A large number of the schools have been inspected 
by him during the past year, and many sanitary and precautionary 
measures adopted as a result. While the work has by no means 
been carried to the extent it has been in some of the northern 
cities, yet many country children have been examined individually 
for defective eyesight, hollow teeth, and adenoids. As many as 
fifteen children were treated for adenoids in one school. Some- 
thing over 600 vaccinations were made during the past 3'ear. 

With the help of a capable stenographer and the further assist- 
ance of a good Studebaker car and the well kept shell roads. 
Superintendent Pugh's service to the schools of the county has 
been multiplied many times. With the exception of about five 
regular office hours each week, he spends all his time among the 
schools advising with patrons, trustees, and teachers. By spending 
most of his time in the field at the points where his services were 
most needed, lie has aided largely in some highly commendable 
consolidations and school building, and helped to place a high 
school education within easy reach of more than 6000 of the 8327 
country children of Harris county. With the further extension 
of the shell roads that will be made in the near future, a number 
of the smaller schools will be discontinued and the pupils trans- 
ported at public expense to the large central schools. 

One-fourth of all the children of free school age in the county 
reside in three very large districts. These three districts have a 
total of 2581 children enrolled, and employ a total of fifty-one 
literary teachers. Each employs a district superintendent, who 
does some teaching, but spends most of his time supervising, or- 
ganizing, and otherwise directing the work of the teachers who are 
immediately under him. The three districts maintain three high 



66 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

schools of the first chiss, offering courses in manual training and 
the domestic arts in addition to the usual academic branches. This 
work, both in the academic branches and in the vocational subjects, 
is recognized and accepted course for course by the Houston High 
School, which is regarded everywhere as one of the best high schools 
in the state. 

In the course of this survey, the physical condition of fifteen 
of the large brick buildings was carefully examined, and the cost 
of construction ascertained. The writer can say that the Harris 
county people have received as good value for their money ex- 
pended in this way as he has ever seen. Only one of the build- 
ings examined was found to be in the least defective. Nor was 
this defect serious, — just a small crack in one of the walls. No- 
where has more graft been imposed on the unsuspecting public 
than in the construction of school buildings by unscrupulous con- 
tractors who have taken advantage of inexperienced school boards. 
Shoddy school buildings are literally strewn all over the state. 
But this is not true in Harris county. Here is the explanation of 
it. The county superintendent has had much experience in this 
sort of work, and is always the chief adviser when plans and speci- 
fications are adopted and contracts awarded. 

Another good piece of business economy practiced in the admin- 
istration of these schools is the simple but unique method adopted 
for buying school supplies. The school boards and principals 
make up estimates of the amount and kind of supplies that will 
be needed for their respective schools. These include stationery, 
raffia, garden seed, apparatus, seats, — all articles of schoolroom 
equipment. When an estimate for the total amount needed for 
the ensuing year has been procured in this way, bids are submitted 
by the dealers. By this simple method of co-operation the schools 
get the advantage of wholesale prices and a better grade of mate- 
rial than if purchases were made a piece at a time from the shrewd 
agent of some school-supply house. School boards never buy a 
single piece of equipment without first consulting the county super- 
intendent as to the kind and quality that should be secured. 

It is also pleasing to note that the credit of every school in the 
county is good anywhere in the city of Houston. It has been the 
policy of the administration to keep. up the credit of the common 
school districts, and this has been a very potent factor in their 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 67 

success. When the present writer was once upon a time employed 
by a retail lumber company, the first piece of instruction he had 
from the management was to this effect: "Do not sell anything 
to a country school board unless it is a cash proposition. Such 
debts are hard to collect. We do not want that sort of trade." 
But the opposite condition obtains in Harris county. School 
boards can get what they want at any time they please, and busi- 
ness men are anxious to accommodate them. 

The office of county superintendent was created in Harris countj 
twenty-seven years ago. Since then four men have been elected 
to it. The first two were in office four j'ears each, the third nine 
years, and the fourth, the present one, ten years. He is now a 
candidate for re-election without an opponent. It seems the Har- 
ris county people have realized the folly of turning a capable, well 
trained man out of this highly important office every four years 
for no other reason than the proverbial second term. 

The excellent constructive and administrative work done by 
Superintendent Pugh during the past ten years should emphasize 
to voters, laymen, and school patrons everywhere the need of re- 
moving the selection of the county superintendent from the squalor 
of politics and placing it in the hands of some administrative 
board. This board should have all the power of a city school 
board, and be free to seek outside the county, or if need be out- 
side the state, for a man who is adapted to the office by his pro- 
fessional merits. With this reform, good superintendents will be 
held longer in office; without it, we may except to continue to see 
the politician who pretends to teach school aspiring and making 
himself available for it. 

The following is a summary of interesting facts about the Harris 
county district schools: 

1. There are thirty-five mothers' club organizations. 

2. Every school district in the county has voted a local mainte- 
nance tax. 

3. The amount of $125,000 is raised annually by local tax- 
ation for the purpose of school maintenance. 

4. The school building bonds issued during the past two and 
one-half years amount to $325,000. 

5. There are twenty-six brick school buildings in the common 
school districts. 



68 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

6. There are two hundred odorless, fly-proof, sanitary closets 
in use. 

7. The schools have in all 115 pianos. 

8. Six wagons are being operated at public expense to carry 
children to and from school. 

9. There are fifty school districts in the county, with an aver- 
age area of 32.5 square miles each. 

10. There is a total of 173 white teachers employed. 

11. Three of the largest school districts employ district super- 
intendents. 

12. The largest district in the county has 1641 pupils, seven 
schools, thirty-three teachers, and two public transportation wagons. 

13. The present county superintendent has been in the office for 
the past ten years. 

14. The county superintendent uses an automobile to make his 
school visitations. 

15. The commissioners' court furnishes a stenographer to the 
county superintendent. 

Svmmary of the Causes that Have Contributed to Educational 
Development of Harris County. 

1. Good country roads. 

2. Seventy-four per cent of the farmers own their homes. 

3. The rural population has increased 73 per cent during the 
pa!-i ten years, and the ingress of new people with new ideas has 
beeu a wonderful stimulus. 

4. The county superintendent has progressive educational ideas, 
and has the courage to put them into effect. 

5. With the assistance of good roads, an automobile, and ade- 
quate office help, the services of the county superintendent have 
been multiplied many fold. 

6. The present county superintendent has been in office ten 
years, and thoroughly understands the people, the local conditions, 
and the needs of every district in the county. 

7. Mothers' clubs and local improvement associations have con- 
tributed all that could be expected. 

8. The city of Houston with its advanced governmental ideas 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 69 

and excellent systems of schools has had an unconscious construc- 
tive influence far out into the country. 

9, Interscholastic athletic contests among the schools have done 
much to develop the latent possibilities of many school commu- 
nities. 

10. The superintendent's annual report of more than 100 pages 
each year has had a good effect. It has given the people of each 
district a chance to see what those of other districts are doing, 
and the spirit of friendly rivalry and the desire to excel have thus 
been created. 

Pasadena School in Harris County. 

(The Schoolhouse is the Industrial, Educational, and Social Center 
of the Community.) 

The Pasadena school district is on the Southern Pacific Eail- 
road, ten miles southeast of Houston. About three and one-half 
miles of track lie within it. Buffalo Bayou constitutes its north- 
ern boundary, and it has an area of approximately twenty-three 
square miles. 

The people are engaged in farming almost exclusively, though 
there are three dairies with an average of twenty cows each. The 
land is black and very rich, and ranges in price from $125 to $400 
per acre. The farms are for the most part very small, the culti- 
vated areas varying from ten to forty acres. Strawberries, vege- 
tables, and feed stuff are the principal products. 

The population is predominately American, with about 11 per 
cent Swedish and German. The Swedes and the Germans have 
the civic, moral, and educational interest of the community at 
heart, and are among the very best citizens. There are no negroes, 
except as day laborers for a few weeks during berry-picking season. 

One very fortunate thing for this district is that its residents 
are permanently located and mean to stay there. Though the 
price of land is high, the matter of diversified farming with small 
land holdings has solved the problem of home ownership. Eighty- 
one of the eighty-three farms in the district are operated by their 
owners. This accounts to a large degree for the fine spirit of 
public enterprise and the prevalent individual pride in all the 
civic affairs of the neighborhood. With this kind of a spirit local 



70 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

public improvements come easily. With a population of shifting 
tenant farmers the reverse condition usually obtains. 

There is but one school in the district. It is housed in an excel- 
lent brick building which has five classrooms, a library and read- 
ingroom, and an auditorium. The classrooms in use are equipped 
with single desks and with globes, charts, and blackboards. The 
auditorium has 200 folding chairs, a commodious stage, and a 
piano. 

The library contains 400 volumes. It is one of the best selected 
small school libraries the agent making this survey has ever seen. 
It was secured through the efforts of the women of the community, 
the lady teachers, and the school children. A young lady of the 
community has charge of it. The library hours are from 1 to 3 
p. m. each school day. 

One of the distinguishing features of this community is that 
the schoolhouse is used more intensively, and for a greater diver- 
sity of purposes than is often practiced. Two evenings in each 
month the auditorium is thrown open for social purposes. Here 
the people of all ages meet in a social way, and probably nothing 
has contributed more toward the complete unifying of all the in- 
terests of the community than these meetings. Sometimes the 
principal feature of the coming together is a debate, a lecture by 
some representative man from Houston, or a home-talent play 
gotten up by teachers and young people. At other times the meet- 
ing is for no other purpose than an informal social good time for 
all, where friends meet friends and neighbors meet neighbors just 
for the sake of being together. 

The auditorium is not seated with the usual opera chairs fastened 
to the floor. It has, instead, folding chairs that may be easily 
removed or rearranged to suit any use to which the auditorium 
may be put. When opera chairs are used just so much floor space 
in the school building is limited to use as an audtiorium only. 

The local farmers' institute meets at the schoolhouse regularly 
in the afternoon of the last Saturday in each month. In an 
informal way it discusses the many questions pertaining to agri- 
culture, horticulture, and farm co-operation. The meetings are 
well attended. The farmers have learned that it is time well 
spent. The school principal is always on hand, and takes the lead. 
It is said of him that he will defer any business njatter rather 



A Study of Rtiral Schools in Texas 71 

than absent himself from one of these institutes. He has not 
missed a meeting in two years. 

Of late a great deal is being said about community co-operation 
and rural credit associations in Texas. Before these can ever be 
had a genuine community spirit must be developed, and this can 
be engendered only by getting the farm people to meet together 
more frequently than Texas farmers do. Pasadena is setting the 
pace. 

At the time of this investigation 120 pupils were enrolled in 
sehool. Nineteen of these were doing high school work. The in- 








Pasadena Public School Building. 

struction, with the exception of that given in agriculture, was can- 
fined for the most part to the usual academic branches. Domestic 
science and manual training have not yet been installed, though 
patrons and pupils are anxious for them. All the laboratory that 
the very successful teacher of agriculture has, with the exception 
of a compound microscope and a few improvised pieces of his own 
making, is some well regulated truck farms near the school grounds. 
These he uses with remarkable ingenuity. 

Four teachers are employed- — a man for principal, and three 
lady assistants. Two of them are college graduates. Each of the 



73 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

others has liad three years of imivcrsity work, and has completed 
several correspondence courses besides. They are all permanent 
residents of the community, and for this reason have a personal 
interest in its welfare. 

The principal, Mr. Eoy Glasgow, is the recognized industrial 
and educational leader of his locality. There is not a more useful 
man in Pasadena. The patrons of the school know this, and ap- 
preciate him duly. He is a successful teacher, an excellent farmer, 
and is proving himself a good business man. 

Ml. Glasgow is now fort3'-one- years old. He got his academic 
training at the University of Missouri and the University of 
Chicago. Though he has never absolved all the technical require- 
ments, he has done more than the full ninnber of courses required 
for his bachelor's degree. 

For ten years he taught science in the high school at Hannibal, 
Missouri. Four years ago he came to Pasadena and bought a 
small faim of twenty-five acres. For the two years following he 
engaged in scientific farming. The third year, lie continued his 
farming and taught the school at South Houston. During two 
years of this time he served as a member of the Pasadena school 
board. One year ago he was elected to his present position. 

Possibly Mr. Glasgow has rendered no greater service to his 
patrons at any time than when he took tlie initiative in promoting 
and organizing the Pasadena Producers' Exchange. The original 
object of this organization was to market the strawberries of the 
neighborhood in a better condition and at better prices. The com- 
mission merchants and local markets were not able to handle the 
whole crop with satisfactory profits to the producers. Some be- 
lieved that other markets and better prices could be found if a 
practical co-operative plan of selling could be devised. Accord- 
ingly a stock company was organized with five directors and a 
capital stock of $2000. The stock was sold in $20 shares and 
subscribed for by eighty local farmers. A regular sales agent was 
employed at $1000 per year and a bookkeeper at $100 per month. 
Professor Glasgow was elected president, which position he still 
holds. 

To begin witli, the exchange charged the producers 15 cents per 
crate for marketing their berries. The sales amounted to approxi- 
mately $90,000 the first season. At the end of the first year's 



A Sttidij of Rural Schools in Texas 



73 



business a 50 per cent dividend was declared to tlie stockholders, 
and there still remained on hand $1800 of undivided profits. But 
since the object of tliis organization is not to pay dividends, the 
charges for marketing have now been so reduced that the stock 
will earn onl_y a fair rate of interest. 




Office of the Pasadena Producers' Exchange. 



Next season not less than $150,000 worth of business is expected. 
At present the stockholders have 284f acres planted in straw- 
berries. For the entire district there is a total of approximately 
330 acres. The crates are furnished to the growers at net cost, 
and 500,000 strawberry plants and a carload of fertilizer have 
recently been bought co-operatively by the association. A co- 



74 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

operative cannery is being projected to take care of the second- 
class products and the local tomato crop. 

On a farm of twenty-eight acres, located one mile from the 
school building and planted in berries, fruit trees, vegetables, and 
feed stuff, Mr. Glasgow made the following profits last year: 

Strawberries, net $1,500 

Dairy, poultry, and garden products, net 400 

Fig plants (4000 sold at 7^c each), net 200 

Total net profit $2,100 

In addition, the farm has produced a good living for Mr. Glas- 
gow and the other three members of his family, permitting him to 
set aside untouched his salary of $115 per month for the seven . 
months school was in session. His total net income from his 
salary and his farm for the year was approximately $2900. Yet, 
inconceivable as it may be to hundreds of Texas fanners, he says 
his farm of twenty-eight acres is too large, and he intends to sell 
at least ten acres of it. 

Of course, Mr, Glasgow does not do all the work himself. In 
fact, he hires the greater portion of it done. "Yes," says the 
criticising, staid old pedagogue who should have joined the fossil 
society a generation ago, "but it is impossible for a man to operate 
a business like that and be as faithful to his school duties as he 
should be." In reply the representative, who made this survey 
begs to suggest that all such critics should be encouraged to visit 
the Pasadena school and see the excellent and enthusiastic work 
that is being done both by the pupils and the teachers. To be 
sure, such an undertaking is no small-caliber man's job; but for 
the man of practical mind and breadth of vision, of industry, and 
of right understanding of the language and sensibilities of farm- 
ing people, it is both feasible and practicable. Mr. Glasgow is 
no prodigy or genius. He is just a common man with common 
sense and practical ideas that fit him for the farm and the school- 
room equally well. 

Texas could use 1000 such teachers today^men of education, 
industry, and ingenuity to enter the country and village public 
schools and aid them in the full and complete performance of all 
the functions they inherently owe to society — civic, industrial. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 75 




Barn of a progressive farmer at Pasadena. 




Packing strawberries for shipment — Pasadena Producers' Exchange. 



76 



Bulletin of the University of Texas 



social, and educational. Heretofore the towns have outbid the 
country places in point of teachers' salaries, and this has had the 
efTect of reducing many of the country schools to mere practice 
schools for the training of city teachers. But conditions are slowly 
ch.ai]ging. Some of the thoughtful teachers are beginning to see 
th.ac many of the most desirable positions in our entire public 
school system are not in the towns and cities, but in the bett<.'r 
courtry place?. If the teacher is genuinely prepared for all his 




Harvest ilia' strawbenies at Pasadena. 



duties, it is in the country or small village school that he has his 
best op})ortunity for leadership and financial gain. 

Dnirij Sc^iool No. J/6 in Harris County. 
(An Example of What People Can Do When They Will.) 

From the name of the Dairy School, it must not be inferred that 
dairying is the principal occupation of the people in this com- 
munity. Nor must it be understood that the business of dairying 
is taught in the school. This statement is made to prevent con- 
fusion as to tlie name of the district. 

A complete understanding and appreciation of what the Dairy 
people have done in an educational way is impossible without a 



A Study of Rural Seliools in Texas 77 

knowledge of the original, physical conditions out of which this 
present prosperous and progressive community has evolved. In 
the beginning nature was not very kind to this section of the 
country. Though the soil was exceedingly fertile, it was very flat, 
and in many places covered with ponds and shallow lakes, which 
rendered it entirely unfit for agricultural purposes. Here the 
people got their first lessons in practical community co-operation, 
for to surmount this obstacle was not a one-man job. A drainage 
district of 48.4 square miles was formed, as provided for by the 
laws of the state, and bonds were issued against it to the amount 
of $60,000. 

In the long run, the physical disadvantages of this spot, so ill- 
favored by nature, has proved a blessing in disguise, for they 
taught the people to look at the affairs of the neighborhood in a 
businesslike Avay. . They have learned that the issuance of bonds 
is the best means of making public improvements, and that money 
paid for taxes judiciously applied to matters of community con- 
cern is money economically spent. The business lessons learned 
in this way made the subsequent school-improvement issue an easy 
one to carry, even though the taxes for local improvements were 
already relatively very high. 

That part of the Dairy school district lying within the bounds 
of the drainage district constitutes slightly more than one-half 
of it, so that Dairy property holders have to bear about one-half, 
or $30,000, of this bonded indebtedness for the construction of 
drainage ditches. The tax amounts to 80 cents on the $100 prop- 
erty valuation. The county rate of taxation for Harris county is 
$1.15. The Dairy local school tax is 50 cents. These make a 
total of $2.65 for local and county taxes, which is more than three 
times the average for such purposes in the country districts of the 
state. Yet when the people saw fit to bond themselves for school 
purposes, they did it cheerfully and unanimously, and the com- 
munity is still not bankrupt. In fact, the farmers are in better 
circumstances today than ever before. Some of the best equipped 
country homes in the county are in this district. 

For more than a generation this community was retarded by 
natural physical encumbrances. Not until the construction of the 
drainage canals did it have a fair chance. It took this to place 
it on an equal physical footing with some of the more fortunate 



78 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

but less ambitious neighbor communities that might have easily 
surpassed it long ago in matters of industrial and educational prog- 
ress had they only possessed an intelligent desire to do so. 

At present its physical conditions are not at all unlike hundreds 
of districts in the state. The country is open prairie. The soil 
is of the black, waxy sort. The people depend upon farming al- 
most entirely for a living. Corn and cotton are the principal 
crops raised. Dairying is a minor industry and subsidiary to 
farming. The average physical valuation of land is about $75 
per acre. The dirt roads could hardly be in a worse condition, 
and during periods of much rain become almost impassable. How- 
ever, this district will soon obtain ten or fifteen miles of good 
shell roads from the $1,250,000 of road bonds recently issued by 
the county. 

The people are predominately American. Fully 25 per cent of 
them have recently come from the east and north, and are thor- 
oughly imbued with progressive educational and civic ideals. Hun- 
dreds of Texas communities need to be shaken up with the same 
stimulus. They are dying of social and educational stagnation, 
solely for the want of an infusion of new blood. This rather 
general criticism is made by the writer, a thoroughbred southerner, 
who has spent all but four years of his life in Texas. 

The Dairy school district in Harris county is fifteen miles west 
ef the city of Houston. It just touches the Fort Bend county line. 
The school is making excellent progress, and may deservedly be 
held up to the people of Texas as an example of what the country 
district can do when its people are willing to co-operate vigorously. 

Originally the Dairy school community constituted part of a 
very large district which contained six small country schools. But 
the people were not satisfied with their inadequate school facilities, 
and it was proposed that the maintenance tax for school purposes 
be increased from ten to twenty cents. To tliis the rest of the dis- 
trict in general objected, and the proposed tax issue was over- 
whelmingly defeated in the election tliat followed. 

The Dairy people were not to be baffled. They were determined 
to provide better educational opportunities for their children. To 
do this some new plan of action had to be hit upon. They said 
among themselves, "Let us petition the commissioners' court to 
form the Dairy community into a new school district." It was 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 79 

done. The petition was granted and the Dairy school district of 
approximately twenty-eight square miles was formed. With the 
first battle won, the second soon followed. A new school building 
had to be erected. Could this little corner of the one-time very 
large district, all unaided, do a thing the parent district had de- 
clined to undertake? 

On January 20, 1911, an election was called for the issuance 
of $10,000 worth of schoolhouse and equipment bonds against the 
new Dairy school district 'No. 46. There was just one dissenting 
vote. But the people soon saw that they had made a mistake. They 
had not voted sufficient money to finish and equip the kind of 
building they had planned. To correct this, bonds for $2000 more 
were immediately issued. This time the vote was unanimous. 

As a result, Dairy has a modern two-story brick school building 
with four well equipped classrooms; a basement with floor space 
sufficient for three other classrooms when the community grows 
populous enough to need them; and an auditorium fitted with 200 
opera chairs, roller-stage curtains, footlights, dressing rooms, and 
a piano. The auditorium and all the classrooms are heated with 
hot air from a furnace in the basement. The unoccupied floor 
space in the basement is used for an indoor playground at present, 
but later it will be used for domestic science and manual training. 
This new school is the pride of the people and the center of the 
community's life. It might be well to add, parenthetically, that 
the parent district, of which Dairy school was formerly a part, has 
seen the error of its wa}^, and now has a new school building — an 
exact duplicate of the Dairy school. 

The Dairy school building stands in the center of a four-acre 
plot of ground. The boys have just finished constructing a track 
all the way around this campus for foot races, bicycles, and motor- 
cycles. In the rear is the baseball diamond and pole vaulting 
ground. To the right are the girls' basketball and volleyball 
courts, and to the left the boys' basketball court. In front of the 
building is an open lawn of more than an acre. The principal 
and the boys have recently set this out in native trees, and given 
it as much the appearance of a park as possible. It will make an 
ideal place for a community picnic ground, for there are no other 
shade trees within five miles. In this way it can he made one 



80 



Bulletin of the UnivcvsUy of Texas 



more valuable agency in getting tlie people to regard the school- 
house as the social center of the community. 

No laboratories for this school have yet been provided. Each 
classroom, however, is well supplied with globes, maps, charts, and 
hyloplate blackboards. The library consists of about 200 well 
selected volumes that circulate freely through the communitv. 





1 



Dairy School. 



The next piece of improvement will be tlic grading and leveling 
of the school grounds. This will 1)C done by work contributed by 
the patrons. As it is, the school ground is too fiat, and does not 
drain well; in rainy weather it is covered with numerous small 
ponds. , 

The policy of the school board now is to provide laboratory 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 81 

apparatus for teaching the elementary sciences and to equip the 
large basement rooms for teaching the industrial arts. The same 
unselfish, neighborly spirit that prompted the people to erect the 
new building will soon provide a well equipped plant where the 
boys may have practical instruction under a competent director 
in the uses of saw, chisel, plane, and carpenter's square; and the 
girls will have the benefits of lessons in cooking, sewing, and better 
home-making. 

The school has an enrollment of one hundred and twenty-three 
pupils. Of these nine are doing regular high school work. The 
distinguishing feature of this student body is its unusually large 
percentage of big boys. For the month ending just prior to the 
time when this survey was made there was but one day's absence 
from school among the twenty largest boys in attendance. 

This ability to keep the big boys interested and in school is due 
in a large degree to the leadership of Mr. 0. A. Heath, the prin- 
cipal. Mr. Heath is twenty-six years old, and along with his 
academic and professional training has a practical knowledge of 
human nature. He understands boys, and they all like him. He 
is a good athlete, and is director of the interscholastic league in 
Harris county. At the Harris county athletic meet to be held 
next spring his basketball, baseball, and track teams will enter 
contests for a good share of the honors. 

Mrs. Heath and Miss Burgess are the other teachers. They are 
both graduates of the Sam Houston State Normal. In fact, they 
and Mr. Heath graduated in the same class, 1911. The three 
make an enviable corps of teachers, and the community very rightly 
feels that it has been fortunate in securing their services. They 
are more than mere academic instructors. They are keenly aware 
that not all education is tied up in the mysteries of books. They 
see that people have a great need for that kind of training which 
comes from proper social recreation. To meet this need, a series 
of social entertainments to be held in the school auditorium have 
been planned for the year. A boys' quartette has been organized, 
and a dramatic club is in process of formation. 

The story of the Dairy school would not be complete without 
an account of the new teacher's home. At the time of this survey, 
it was under construction, and had just received the first coat of 
paint. It is a five-room Imngalow structure built by the commu- 



82 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

nity. The money was raised by private subscription. It is a great 
step toward inducing a really competent school man to come and 
stay in the community and be a real citizen, — a social and indus- 
trial leader among the people, as well as an academic instructor 
in the classroom. The Texas public schools can never hope to 
perform the whole duty they owe to society so long as the teachers 
are a class of transients that sojourn on an average less than two 
years in the same place. 

The spirit of the people of this community is well illustrated 
by the fact that a committee of representative citizens recently 
requested the commissioners' court to raise the valuations of prop- 
erty given by the county assessor in order that their school revenues 
might be increased. Although the present rate of taxation for 
school purposes is all that is permitted under the state constitu- 
tion, the revenue is insufficient; and in order to have the privilege 
of paying more school tax, the people are also willing to pay more 
state and county taxes. 

A thousand districts in Texas need to do what the Dairy school 
people have done. They need to spend more money for public 
improvements and public education. It would revolutionize the 
minds of the people to do so. As a rule the public should pay 
for all that it gets; it never fully appreciates the things that are 
given to it outright. The local public mind delights most in those 
improvements that are made out of local public revenues. The 
Dairy people appreciate their good school today a thousand times 
more than do the numerous communities whoso feeble little schools 
subsist entirely through the meager charity of the state. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 83 



VII. THP] EURAL SCHOOLS OF BELL COUNTY. 

ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL SITUATION. 

Bell county is situated in the south central part of the state. 
It was organized in 1850, and contains 1083 square miles. It is 
one of the big cotton producing counties, practically one-fifth of 
the total area being planted each year in cotton, on which about 
60,000 bales are raised annually. The cereal crop, mainly corn, 
oats, and wheat, covers an area of about one-half as great as that 
in cotton. Since cotton is the principal money producing crop, 
the industrial situation and the school problems of Bell county 
are typical of those in the great cotton belt of central Texas. 

According to the 1910 census, there were 788,095 acres, repre- 
senting 82 per cent of the total tillable area, actually under culti- 
vation. This land varies in price from $60 to $150 per acre. 
There were 4:915 farms varying in size from three to 1000 acres 
or more. The number of farms decreased slightly during the pre- 
ceding decade. Twenty-seven farms had 1000 acres or more; 79 
had from 500 to 1000 acres; 203 had from 260 to 500 acres. 1935, 
or 39.4 per cent, of the farms were operated by owners; 2973, or 
60.5 per cent, by tenants; and seven by farm managers. Of the 
farms operated by owners, 1050 were free from mortgages. Ac- 
cording to the report of the county tax assessor to the state comp- 
troller, the total assessed valuation of property in the county 
amounts to $29,669,830. This assessed valuation represents less 
than one-half of the real value. 

In the main, the farm houses of landlords indicate an appre- 
ciation of the importance of home building. There is often, how- 
ever, a lack of conveniences caused by improper building plans. The 
amount of money which the landlords spend for their homes would 
procure much better conveniences if these homes were built accord- 
ing to plans drawn by competent architects. Although the tenant 
houses are as good as those commonly found, they are as a rule 
built cheaply and without regard to the tenant's health or comfort. 
Many of them are built upon the waste land of creeks. In many 
instances, the tenant house is located on less than an acre of land 
in the middle of a farm. The absence of playgrounds for the 



84 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

children adds desolation to the sites selected. It is but human 
nature that good tenants will select the houses which provide the 
most homelike surroundings. Here again there is need of well 
selected plans. Whether for the landlord or for the tenant, the 
construction of convenient homes constitutes an important item 
of economy in farm management. 

The practice of collecting what is called the "bonus" is one of 
the pernicious features of the rental system. B}- this is meant the 
payment of money, varying from one to three dollars per acre 
annually in addition to the customary rentals of one-third and 
one-fourth. This practice does not extend to some communities, 
nor is it countenanced by many of the more thoughtful landlords. 
However, it seems that each year increases the number of "bonus" 
farms. The system is not based upon any scientific calculation, 
often varying in amount in the same community. Abuses fre- 
quently result in making the wealthy landlords Avealthier and the 
poor tenants poorer. 

INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION. 

The rank and file of the farmers with wliom the representative 
of the Department of Extension talked seemed not to appreciate 
the importance of industrial co-operation. The truth of this state- 
ment is evidenced by the fact that often the local farmers' union 
organization, once active, is now either inactive or completely dead. 
This IS possibly due in part to tlie fact that too many of such organi- 
zations were effected to give to them virility and enthusiasm, the 
unit of organization generally being co-ordinate with the small 
school community. But there are two distinct features of indus- 
trial co-operation that deserve special mention. The first of these 
is the result of the efforts of the county farm demonstrator. 
Through the schools he keeps constantly in touch with a large 
number of boys who are cultivating agricultural plots under his 
direction. Before a school is visited, each boy studying agriculture 
is asked to bring twenty of his best ears of corn to the school, 
where the government demonstrator makes a selection of the ten 
best. The reasons are explained to the class why the ten good 
ears are accepted and why the ten poor ones are rejected. Other 
services of the county farm demonstrator that deserve special men- 



A Stvdij of Rural Schools in Texas 85 




Supeiiiiteiulfiit's dwelling, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, 
Temple, Texas. 




Auditorium, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, Temple, Texas. 



86 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

tion are the Supplying of pure seed to the farmers and the deliver- 
ing of scientific lectures accompanied by stereopticon views. 

The second phase of industrial co-operation is the work of the 
Bell County Experiment Association. This association, with a 
membership of more than fifty progressive farmers, is an organi- 
zation to bring about a closer co-operation between the farmers 
and the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. As the experi- 
ment station determines by investigation that certain methods of 
culture or certain pure types of seed are best adapted to the sec- 
tion, these facts are carried to the farmer by the county farm 
demanstrator. The association has established a market bureau 
for pure seed. There has recently been erected an auditorium 
for holding community meetings. The exposition hall is not only 
a real social center, but it is a model of the general meeting place 
that should be available to the people of every community. The 
superintendent of the experiment station has always kept in mind 
the service possible for the station to render to the country schools 
of the county. This is indeed an opportunity for the schools of 
Bell county to get away from the proverbial book agriculture so 
often taught, and to come into contact with real field agriculture. 
Any school of the county would do well to spend one day, at least, 
in each year in visiting this farm. It would he an ideal place for 
the maintenance of a model rural high school at comparatively 
little cost. 

MARKET FACILITIES. 

Railroads. 

Three railroads cross the county, furnishing an adequate outlet 
for agricultural products. An electric railway connects Temple 
and Belton, the two largest towns. Other thriving railroad towns 
which offer competitive markets are Bartlett, Holland, Killeen, 
Eogers, Troy, Pendleton, and Nolanville. Practically all of these 
towns have cotton seed oil mills. 

Good Roads. 

No county in the state is in greater need of good roads than 
Bell county. The nature of the soil makes transportation impos- 
sible over the neglected roads during the rainy seasons. So bad 



A Stvdy of Rural ScJiooIs in Texas 87 

were thej^ during all of December, 1913, that transportation over 
dirt roads was suspended. Even in the city of Temple four horses 
were required to pull a small delivery wagon. In the face of the 
fact that the farmer is the principal beneficiary of permanent 
roads, the majority of the farmers have been obstinately opposed 
to their construction by the issuance of bonds. The towns, on the 
contrary, have fallen in line with the progressive movement. 

But the good-roads sentiment is fast increasing. Good roads 
have been the special slogan of the commissioner from the Belton 
precinct. Convict labor has built about half the pike road con- 
necting Temple and Belton. Streets in the town of Belton are 
being permanently improved. The Belton district has issued 
$150,000 worth of bonds for permanent road improvement; the 
Bartlett precinct, $50,000 ; the Heidenheimer precinct, $30,000 ; 
the Temple precinct, $600,000. The expenditure of the money 
around these towns will doubtless cause the good-roads contagion 
to spread over the country districts. As an evidence of the com- 
mercial value of such improvement to the country, one farmer 
living on a gravel road four miles from Belton said this his road 
tax on the bonds for the year was only $6.90, and that he had 
made this back in hauling only two loads. Not to mention the 
possibilities for better country schools and improved social inter- 
course among neighbors, the commercial value of permanent roads 
amply justifies their construction. 

The criticism of the method of constructing permanent roads 
in Bell county is that the piecemeal system does not permit a com- 
prehensive planning of a network of roads for the entire county, 
such as would obtain if the county were the unit. The fault here 
lies with the system. 

SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 

Bell county is exceedingly fortunate in having a homogeneous 
population. According to the census of 1910, the county had a 
population of 49,186. Of this number 42,874 were white and 
6302 negroes. Only 2013 of the white population were foreign 
born ; 37,025 had native parentage. The number of illiterate voters 
was 5.6 per cent. There were 9670 families, of whom approxi- 
mately two-thirds reside in the rural districts. 

The condition of the roads, already mentioned, has had the 



88 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

effect of retarding soc-ial communication. The money now avail- 
able will probably complete 150 miles of permanent road; but for 
the reason that this improvement is centered about the larger 
towns, many of the country communities will receive small benefit 
from them. Practically every community has telephone service. 
In some communities 75 per cent of the homes have telephone 
connections; on an average, probably one-third of the country 
homes have such service. Twenty-eight lines of rural free mail 
delivei-y connect 90 per cent of the families with what is going 
on in the world. The people are unanimous in their praise of 
this form of government service. 

In general, there is a lack of activity on the part of organiza- 
tions which have for their object the promotion of social welfare. 
The "Woodmen of the AYorld and the Independent Order of Odd 
Fellows are the most active fraternal orders. About ten commu- 
nities liave debating or literary societies which meet regularly. 
Only one rural school has taken part in the interscholastic league 
contests. Through the efforts of the county superintendent, active 
mothers' clubs are maintained at Prairie Dell, Little Kiver, Brook- 
haven, and Heidenheiraer. Mention is made elsewhere of the boys' 
corn club work. Xo active organization of girls' clubs has been 
formed. Probably one-third of the country schools have some form 
of athletic activities directed by the teachers, but there is a lack 
of close organization and supervision. The principal games are 
basketball and baseball. 

The people of the county are unusually friendly and cordial, 
possessing all tlie essential qualifications for a virile and happy 
citizenship. The young people if properly directed are gifted with 
sufficient talent to provide a wholesome social life. All that is 
needed is leadership. The liox supper given at Pendleton on the 
evening of January 17, 1914, furnishes an excellent example of 
what may be done by teachers in this respect. Preceding the box 
supper, the county farm demonstrator gave a stereopticon lecture 
on Burbank, the machine and slides having been furnished by 
the Department of Extension of the University of Texas. This 
was followed by two or three short talks. Then the boxes were 
sold, netting the school about $-1:0. The' evening was one of 
pleasure and profit to both patrons and pupils, and gave the teach- 
ers an excellent opportunity to strengthen the school through the 



A Studij of Rural Schools in Texas 89 

right direction of innate social tendencies. By a little work, and 
much less ingeunity, any teacher could direct social meetings of 
this kind in his community. In almost every community of Bell 
county there is ample evidence of the good that could he accom- 
plished l)y the teacher hy a ivider social utilization of the school 
plant. 

Churches. 

The problems confronting the churches of Bell county are not 
unlike those mentioned in the general discussion of country 
churches elsewhere in this bulletin. The pastors with whom the 
representative talked were cordial and co-operative. Church activi- 
ties in the country are limited principally to three denominations. 
All ministers with whom the matter ivas discussed were convinced 
that the procuring of competent pastors was the biggest problem 
confronting the country church. The demand is growing less each 
year for the "clophopper" preacher who plows six days in the week 
and preaches one day. But even this system cannot be much worse 
than the absentee pastor who visits and preaches in the community 
once or twice per month. Eighteen country pastors at one time 
resided in the same town and were members of the same town 
church. x\.nother denomination had a number of country church 
organizations, not a single one of which had a pastor. One-iifth 
of the churches of one denomination had preaching twice per 
month, the other four-fifths once per month. The country preacher 
who devotes all his time to pastoral work, which is often scattered 
over several communities remote from each other, receives on an 
average approximately $600 per year — about one-third the wages 
of an average bricklayer. // the country church is to live and 
groiv, it must pay living salaries to its ministers, and prescribe to 
each a limited field of work, the performance of which will not 
require the luorking of miracles. This will call for a systematic 
division of the county into appropriate units by some regularly 
constituted church authority. It will also call for co-operation 
and concessions on the part of the several denominations. 

An examination of the records of twenty-four rural churches of 
one denomination showed that fifteen had gained and nine lost in 
membership during the preceding year. Eight of them had fewer 



90 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

than fifty members. Sixteen maintained Sunday schools and six- 
teen owned their church buildings. 

Most of the church buildings are small, seating from two to 
three hundred. Many of them are not properly cared for. It is 
not uncommon to find neglected yards, doors standing open, build- 
ings in need of paint. One minister reported that in a church 
at which he filled an appointment he found an old hen sitting 
tranquilly on a full nest of eggs. These facts emphasize the im- 
portance of resident pastors who should be the custodians of church 
property. The church building should he made and kept attrac- 
tive, receiving as much care as is ordinarily given private property. 
Salvation and sanitation are not total strangers to each other. 

Many of the churches have introduced young people's organiza- 
tions, as auxiliary activities to the church; but there is need of 
more planning and direction of social life by the church for the 
young people. This is another illustration of the necessity for 
resident pastors. What is said here is not intended to reflec!, upon 
anyone; nor does the writer fail to appreciate the self-sacrificing, 
God-fearing, overworked, and poorly paid ministers of the country 
churches. 

EDUCATIONAL STx\.TDS AND TENDENCIES. 

Instruction. 

The teachers of Bell county are intelligent and progressive. Ac- 
cording to the report of the county superintendent for 1913, there 
were 29 white male teachers and 112 female teachers in the coun- 
try districts, a total of 141. Seventy-nine were holders of second 
grade certificates, 55 of first grade certificates, and 7 of perma- 
nent or permanent primary certificates; 54 were graduated from 
high schools, 19 from normal schools, 8 from colleges or uni- 
versities, and 60 were graduated from no schools. Growth in 
efficiency is indicated by the increase from 38 teachers with first 
grade certificates last year to 55 this year, a gain of 47 per cent. 
This was one of the effects of the Rural High School Law, which 
prohibits the holder of a second grade certificate from teaching 
high school subjects. But in spite of this progress, the efficiency 
of the country schools, as indicated by the credentials of the 
teachers, falls far short of the town schools in the same county. 
For example, in the public schools of Temple for the same year, 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 91 

not a teacher held a second grade certificate; 24 held first grade 
certificates, and 32 permanent or permanent primary certificates. 
Further, 24 were graduated from high schools, 11 from normal 
schools, and 15 from colleges or universities. This is only one of 
the v.'ays of comparing the opportunity of the country child in 
Bell county with that of the child residing in Temple, in the same 
county. After all else is considered, it remains true that the de- 
gree of efficiency attained by the school depends largely on the 
employment of professionally trained teachers. The country chil- 
dren are entitled to better trained teachers. 

Then there is the teacher's salary. The average annual salary 
of the country teacher of Bell county is $335; the average salary 
per month, $59.82. For the teachers of the city of Temple, these 
two items ' are, respectively, $718.43 and $79.82. The country 
scliools doubtless get about what they pay for. Whether on the 
farm, in the store, or in the schoolroom, it is a principle of busi- 
ness economy that successful administration always requires the 
employment of efficient helpers, which in turn necessitates an ade- 
quate remuneration for services rendered. This does not mean 
that money must be squandered. The maintenance of efficient 
country schools in Bell county will require the expenditure of more 
money for ieiter teachers. 

Good teaching is essential; but it is not more essential than the 
selection of the matter to be taught. As far as the observation 
of ihp present writer extended, the teaching of agriculture was 
limited to book theory. None of the schools visited had an experi- 
mental farm, or a manual training shop, or a domestic economy 
department. Contrast this with the fact that the city schools of 
Temple offer instruction in typewriting, bookkeeping, and domestic 
economy. The most serious defect in the country schools was the 
omission of the practical subjects from the curriculum. The fol- 
lowing additional comparisons of the country schools of Bell county 
with the schools of Temple are made for the purpose of showing 
the inequality in the opportunities given different children in the 
same county: 



93 



Bulletin of the University of Texas 




A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 93 

Other Comparisons of White Schools. 

Bell County Rural City of Temple 

Schools. Schools. 

Length of school term 112 clays 180 days 

A^alue of school property per child $17.94 $95.10 

Annual maintenance expenditure per 

child $8.54 $21.63 

Per cent scholastics present each day ... . 53 71 

Per cent scholastics absent each day .... 47 29 

These figures represent with reasonable accuracy similar com- 
parisons of other growing town schools with the contiguous coun- 
try schools. Is the country child given a square deal? Do these 
figures sound like democracy or discrimination? Is there any 
justification for permitting country schools to continue monuments 
of wasted opportunity? 

Tenure of Office of Teachers. 

A marked potential improvement in the rural schools of Bell 
county lies in the increase of the number of teachers from year to 
year. With respect to the tenure of office at the close of the pres- 
ent school year, the following facts are given: 47 teachers have 
taught the same schools for two successive terms or more (14 of 
these for three consecutive terms) ; 30 changed from one school 
to another in the county; 101 were new in the county. Two con- 
clusions are deducible from these facts: first, a slightly smaller 
percentage of teachers changed at the end of the first and the sec- 
ond years in Bell county than in the state at large; second, the 
percentage of teachers new to the county is large. Other counties 
have done worse in this respect ; but no business, public or private, 
which shifts 18 per cent of its employes and completely changes 
57 per cent of its employes at the end of each year can attain 
even a medium degree of efficiency. The school can well learn a 
lesson from the commercial world. The country schools of Bell 
county need less changing of teachers from year to year. 



94 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

School Districts and Consolidation. 

Of the 98 country schools in Bell county, 62 are one-teacher 
schools, 29 are two-teacher schools, and 7 employ three teachers 
or more. There are 98 districts with an average area of about 
ten square miles. Thirty-eight districts have an area of less than 
six square miles, and 35 other districts have an area of less than 
eight square miles. There is no official map which defines accu- 
rately the boundaries of the several districts, and the records cre- 
ating or changing them are scattered over several thousand pages 
of commissioners' court minutes covering the past forty years. 
The experience of other counties shows that inaccurate boundary 
lines cause the country schools to lose annually from two hundred 
to two thousand dollars in the collection of special taxes. Within 
a few years the country schools would recover several times the 
amount of money that would be necessary to clarify the records 
and make an official map of the school districts. An official map, 
defining district boundary lines, should he prepared. 

The formation of so many districts is a natural consequence of 
the speedy development of pioneer settlements into a populous, 
organized county unit. Most of this occurred before the attention 
of school authorities was called to the evil effects of decentraliza- 
tion upon school affairs. While the blame rests upon no one, 
conditions are such that the consolidation of districts is the only 
guarantee of the possibility of good schools for the country chil- 
dren of Bell county. The benefits to be derived from consolida- 
tion are mentioned elsewhere, and the principles there discussed are 
applicable to conditions in this county. Bad roads are the greatest 
obstacles, but even these should not stand in the way, because 
attendance for a shorter time upon a consolidated school would 
be of greater value to the pupils than attendance for a longer time 
upon a small school under the best conditions. Besides, the con- 
solidation of schools will do much to hasten the construction of 
good roads. 

Below is a drawing of three districts in Bell county where con- 
solidation would be both practicable and desirable. These districts 
last year had a census enumeration oi 138, receiving $842.55 from 
the state and $622.11 from local taxes. This amount of money 
would easily employ two good teachers for a term of eight months, 



A Stndy of Rural Schools in Texas 



95 




96 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

whereas the average term now is less than six months. At least 
two additional grades could be added, and the whole school taught 
more efficiently than at present. An additional 5 cent tax would 
make possible the employment of a third teacher. A tax of 25 
cents would provide for the issuance of bonds to the amount of 
$8500 for the erection of a schoolhouse. By this small additional 
expenditure, the school would easily double its efficiency; but even 
the expenditure of only the amount of money it now spends on 
the three schools would make an infinitely better school under the 
consolidation plan. If transportation were added, this consolida- 
tion could include profitably even more territory than these three 
small districts. 

This is only one example of many where consolidation would be 
desirable. It is worthy of comment that the county superintendent 
appreciates these needs, and that five consolidations have been made 
within the past two years. Since the issuance of schoolhouse bonds 
establishes the boundary lines of a school district for an indefinite 
period, the issuance of bonds by any district would not be advisable 
unless the district includes the proper amount of territory. There 
are many small schools which must be abandoned if an efficient 
system of education is maintained. Bell county needs to he re- 
districted with a view to effecting consolidations wherever prac- 
iicdble, due consideration being given to districts already formed. 

Physical Features of the Schools. 

Eighty-nine of the country schools have frame buildings and 
nine have brick or stone buildings. The county superintendent 
reports 32 of these schoolhouses in good condition and 17 in bad 
condition. In one of the best brick houses improper drainage had 
permitted water to undermine the foundation and crack the walls ; 
the expenditure of only a few dollars would have prevented the 
costly accident. A majority of the schools do not have sufficient 
grounds for well organized play. In several of the schools there 
were evidences of tree planting and yard improvement. The con- 
dition of outhouses was unsatisfactory, both in sanitation and in 
appearance. The outhouses should he screened and provided with 
septic tanks. The moral cost of bad closets is incalculable. The 
expenditure of ten or fifteen dollars in each instance is a small 



A Shnhi of Tiiirn] Sclionlsi in Texas 



97 




98 Bulletin of the Universltij of Texas 

consideration when compared with the cost of disease incident to 
unsanitary closets. Simijle plans may be obtained free from Sur- 
geon General Eupert Blue, Washington, D. C. The rooms of the 
new buildings are provided with modern systems of heating and 
ventilation, an example that should be followed by all the schools. 
More than nine-tenths of the schoolrooms are seated with either 
single or double desks — a comparatively good record in this re- 
spect. A few drinking fountains have been installed. Fifteen 
schools have purchased libraries aggregating about 1800 books, and 
the interest in libraries is growing. 

Local Taxation. 

As a rule, public school sentiment in a county or community 
may be measured by the extent of local taxation. Eecognition of 
the necessity for local taxes is becoming general among the people. 
Even the politician's boastful allusions to our "magnificent per- 
manent school fund" have ceased to be popular or to hoodwink 
the people. Though late in making the start. Bell county has 
caught the spirit. More progress has been made in this direction 
during the incumbency of the present county superintendent than 
in any previous administration. The following facts about the 
98 country school districts speak for themselves : 

65 districts levy a local tax. 

3 districts levy the maximum of 50 cents. 
7 districts levy 40 cents or more. 

22 districts levy 25 cents or more. 

32 districts levy 20 cents or more. 

19 districts levy 10 cents. 

4 districts levy less than 10 cents. 

10 districts voted a tax during the year 1913. 

2 districts voted an additional tax in 1913. 

1 district voted off its tax in 1913. 
$17,120 is collected annually from local taxes. 

8choolhouse Bonds. 

Another manifestation of progress is the erection of good school- 
houses by the issuance of bonds. Much that has been done in this 
respect was under the leadership and at the instigation of the 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 99 

present county superintendent. Within the past three years 
$83,500 has been expended in tlie construction of twelve country 
schoolhouses. The following are the districts that have erected 
the most substantial schoolhouses : Little Elver, seven miles south 
of Temple; the Academy, ten miles southeast of Temple; Joe Lee, 
five miles west of Eogers ; Little Flock, four miles east of Temple ; 
Wiltonville, four miles west of Belton; Prairie Dell, fifteen miles 
southwest of Belton; Willow Grove, a county line district on the 
north. Practically all of them are modern buildings, the plans 
of which were furnished by the county superintendent, who exer- 
cises discretion and diligence in the approval of warrants drawn 
upon building funds. 

Governing Boards. 

It is physically impossible for the county superintendent to keep 
constantly in touch with one hundred local boards of trustees, 
which comprise more than three hundred members. The fact, 
however, that 60 per cent of the boards confer with the county 
superintendent in the election of teachers is a credit to their intel- 
ligence. One of the most useful organizations is the County Trus- 
tees' Association. The organization, effected in 1911, holds in 
the months of May and November each year a session of two days. 
School problems, such as sanitation, interior and ground improve- 
ment, and the classification of schools, are discussed. Trustees 
participate spiritedly in the discussions, relating what has been 
accomplished in their respective communities. Their interest is 
evidenced by the fact that the attendance upon each session aver- 
ages one hundred. The Trustees' Association and its work de- 
serve special commendation. 

The county board keeps in close touch with the local trustees 
by the issuance of short bulletins twice during each year. As a 
result no confusion has arisen in the classification of the schools 
as required by the Eural High School Law, and the local trustees 
have accordingly given their assistance in this important work. 
The county board has directed the county superintendent to fur- 
nish examination questions to all pupils completing the primary 
and the intermediate grades. Approximately one hundred pupils 
are transferred annually for high school purposes. In making 



100 Bulletin of tlie University of Texas 

transfers for liigli school purposes, it has been the custom of the 
county hoard to transfer only state and county funds. As a mat- 
ter of fact, the cost of maintaining the several grades of school 
work varies, increasing with the advanced grades. For this reason 
the county board should, as a rule, transfer more than is appor- 
tioned to the pupil from the state and county funds. The cost 
per high school pupil should he determined in each individual case, 
and this should govern the amount of funds transferred. The 
commissioners' court is generally considerate of the recommenda- 
tions made by the county board. 

The County Superintendent's Office. 

Bell county was one of the first to see the need for the office 
of county superintendent of public instruction. As a consequence, 
the office was created by an act of the commissioners' court in 
1886. During the twenty-eight years the county has had eight 
county superintendents. The following list shows the name and 
the length of service of each: 

T. J. Witt, 4 years. 

F. C. Humphries, 2 years. 

W. C. Halbert, 2 years. 

Forrest Smith, 2 years. 

W. W. Higgins, 4 years. 

H. K. Orgain, 6 years. 

J. W. Grissom, 4 years. 

J. S. Morgan, 4 years. 

In most instances the office was obtained as a result of a political 
scramble. The average length of time served by the county super- 
intendent was a little more than three years, a time entirely too 
short to allow him to become familiar with the conditions and 
accomplish any extensive constructive work. The facts show that 
some of tlie county superintendents had opponents at the close of 
the first elective term, and that all of them who offered for re- 
election liad opponents at the close of the second term. Only one 
served for more than four years. It is a matter of common knowl- 
edge that a county superintendent's best work is possible after the 
fourth or sixth year in office. Although the county has, in the 
main, elected efficient superintendents, the facts above given show 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 101 

conclusively the effects of local politics. The interest of the coun- 
try schools demand that the office of county superintendent shall 
he removed from factional politics so as to secure competent men 
and guarantee them permanency of position. 

The ofSce of county superintendent in this county has done much 
constructive work. The county teachers' institute deserves special 
mention. According to the plan now in use, the institute is divided 
into sections of from twenty to twenty-five members for the pur- 
pose of studying a textbook selected by the county superintendent. 
At another period the institute is divided into sections, which in- 
clude, respectively, primary, intermediate, and high school teach- 
ers; and at still another period, the county superintendent and the 
several city superintendents meet with their respective teachers. 
A professional library of one hundred and fifty books has been 
purchased, and there are additional funds to increase the number 
of volumes. At the last county institute the teachers defrayed the 
expenses of procuring the services of several expert lecturers. 

There has been organized a story-tellers' league, which meets 
twice each year. At the first meeting there were sixty-five teach- 
ers and more than five hundred citizens present. The interest in 
these meetings has stirred enthusiasm on the part of both teachers 
and parents. The county superintendent has held as many local 
institutes as his time would permit. A larger number of local 
institutes held throughout the year ivould doubtless prove bene- 
ficial. The present county superintendent manifests a personal 
pride and interest in advising with the teachers, trustees, and 
patrons. He addresses the teachers as often as possible. The 
support which the people have given him in the erection of new 
schoolhouses is an example of the confidence they have in him. 

The county superintendent is at present handicapped by the 
large amount of clerical work. For example, the following work 
which could be done by a clerk employed at fifty or sixty dollars 
per month requires much of the best time and vitality of the 
county superintendent, who should be freed from it that he might 
devote his entire attention to the larger school problems of the 
county: (1) Writmg from 2500 to 3000 letters annually; (2) 
bookkeeping, involving a yearly expenditure of $75,000 for 108 
school districts; (3) auditing annually nearly 1000 teachers' re- 
ports; (4) distribution of census blanks to 100 districts, and prep- 



102 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

aration of census reports; (5) filing of lists of trustees, recording 
teachers' certificates, issuing circular letters and numerous other 
official data; (6) distribution of blanks and office supplies, such as 
teachers' report blanks, registers, building permits, trustees' oaths, 
notices of election, and bond records; (7) the performance of much 
other detail work too minute to mention. It is a principle of 
sound hiLsiness economy that expensive labor must perform expert 
service, and for this reason money would he saved to the country 
schools hy the employment of clerical assistance for the county 
■superintendent. 

. Summary and Recommendations. 

The Texas Experiment Station would he an ideal place for the 
maintenance of a model rural high school at comparatively little 
cost. 

Not to mention the possibilities of better country schools and 
improved social intercourse among neighbors, the commercial value 
of permanent roads amply justifies their construction. 

In almost every community there is ample evidence 'of the good 
that could he accomplished hy the teacher in directing social life. 

The procuring of competent pastors is the biggest problem of 
the country church in Bell county. Living salaries are not at 
present paid to ministers. Church buildings should he made more 
attractive. 

The maintenance of cedent country schools in Bell county will 
require the expenditure of more money for better teachers. 

The consolidation of districts is the only guarantee of the pos- 
sibility of good schools for the country children of Bell county. 
For this purpose the county needs redistricting. 

An official map, defining district boundary lines, should be 
prepared. 

Outhouses should he screened and provided with septic tanks. 

Local school tax sentiment has shown a marvelous growth dur- 
ing the past feiv years. 

The office of county superintendent should he removed from 
factional politics. 

The county superintendent is overloaded with clerical work that 
should he done hy an assistant. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 103 

A larger niunher of local institutes ivould prove beneficial. 

Very little industrial ivork is done in the schools. Such in- 
struction is not possible to any great extent until larger districts 
are obtained by means of consolidation. 

THE WILLOW GROVE SCHOOL. 

The organization of the Willow Grove school, a consolidated 
school on the northern boundar)^ of Bell county, is an illustration 
of the principle that common sense and hard work are more val- 
uable assets to a community than genius. It is a simple story of 
how an efficient county superintendent pointed out the way, and 
the people, recognizing the value of education, put aside the local 
prejudices that often misgTiide the actions of men, and co-oper- 
atively followed his advice. The present district was originally 
three small districts, each of which maintained, with an inexperi- 
enced teacher, a poorly kept school in a more poorly kept building 
for four months during the year. The conversion of these poor 
schools into one good school, maintained in a modern brick build- 
ing for eight months in the year, and employing well trained 
teachers, makes this event the beginning of a new era in public 
education for the country schools of Bell county. 

Consolidation of the Prairie Hill, Bound Top, and old Willow 
Grove schools was effected in the summer of 1913, and the school 
employed only one teacher for the year 1913-13, paying $75 per 
month for seven months. After the technical and legal require- 
ments with respect to the creation of the district were met, a bond 
election for the erection of an $8000 school building was carried 
in 1913 by a vote of 38 to 11. A maintenance tax of 35 cents, 
making a total school tax of 47 cents on the $100 valuation of 
property, was voted by practically the same majority. The build- 
ing was completed and became the home of the school in Jan- 
uary, 1914. 

The consolidated district, comprising about fourteen square 
miles, is situated in the black land farming belt. The assessed 
valuation of property is $350,808.50. Cotton is the principal crop. 
Ninety-five per cent of the land is in cultivation. The average 
size of the farms is 93 acres. The price of land ranges from $110 
to $150 per acre. Seventy-seven families, of whom 31 are home 



104 



Bill lei in of llw Univcrsilij of Tc.ias 




A Study of Rural Schools i/i Texas 105 

owners and 46 are tenants, reside in the district. There are no 
foreigners, and only an occasional family of negroes. 

The school building has an ideal location on an attractive prom- 
inence in the center of the district at the crossing of two public 
roads. The board of trustees displayed intelligent business judg- 
ment by purchasing six acres of ground. Pictures on the opposite 
page show the three abandoned buildings (one of Avhich was par- 
tially torn away at the time the survey was made) , and also the in- 
complete brick building which supplanted them. This str^icture is 
justly the pride of the com.munity. There are two classrooms and 
a music room on the first floor, and a cosnmodious auditorium on 
the second. Each room is seated with single desks and a teacher's 
desk, is heated with a modern ventilating stove, and provided with 
good hyloplate blackboards, 

Another commendable feature of this school is the principal's 
home, which is situated on the school grounds. This house, to- 
gether Avith a garden, is the property of the school, and is furnished 
without cost to the teacher. One of the old school buildings was 
remodeled for this purpose. The wisdom of this investment will 
not be questioned by those who have made investigations. Aside 
from the question of convenience and from the fact that such a 
plan enables the teacher to become the custodian of all school 
property, the teacher is relieved of the embarrassment of being 
unable to rent a satisfactory home near the school. Prior to the 
completion of this home, the teacher's family was compelled to 
live in a dilapidated two-room hut, situated in the middle of a 
field. Aside from the fact that the old house was uncomfortable 
and insanitar}^, its occupation was not in keeping with the dignity 
of a teachers position in the community, nor did it permit the 
teacher and his family to render the community that social service 
which should be expected from them. 

The principal, a man thirty-five years of age, possesses tact, per- 
sonality, and leadership. The vim and snap which entered into 
the recitations showed clearly that his heart was in his work. 
Whether teaching a class or leading the songs for the school, it 
was easy to discern that he was the recognized leader in the school- 
room and out. It was his direct personal infiuence that accounted 
for the large number of older pupils in this school. The salary 
of the principal is $100 per month for eight months. 



106 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

While conditions now are infinitely better than under the old 
plan before the consolidation was made, the Willow Grove school 
could be much improved hj a small additional investment. There 
should le a lihranj, an agricultural plot, a drinhing fountain, phys- 
ical apparatus for teaching natural science, playground equipment, 
and sanitary outhouses. A literary society should he organized. 
The course of study for the school should include experimental 
agriculture for the hoys and domestic economy for the girls. And 
an additional teacher is needed. It is recommended that the board 
of trustees and the teachers seek to make these improvements at 
the earliest possible moment. The necessity for good equipment 
is comprehensively discussed in many bulletins, and for this reason 
the present discussion will not go into the details of a question 
over which there is no division of opinion. 

Conditions with respect to the church are about as they usually 
are in country communities. The observations recorded elsewhere 
in this bulletin are applicable in a large measure to the churches 
of Willow Grove. The community has two organized churches of 
different denominations; one has a membership of sixtj'-five, the 
other of eighty-five. Each maintains a Sunday school. One owns 
its church building, the other occupies a temporary building. Each 
employs a pastor for one Sunday in the month, and the pastor in 
each case does not live in the community. The salary paid to each 
is $150 per year. Neither of the churches has any young people's 
organization other than the Sunday school. Perhaps these churches 
are doing as much as could, be expected under present conditions. 
The pastors are intelligent and devout men. But this community 
would he infinitely more religious if there were a consolidation of 
churches, just as there have heen a consolidation of schools, so as 
to make possible the employment of- a pastor for his full time, or 
at least for half of his time. The church and the school should 
be the most potent factors in providing a wholesome social life for 
the young people in this community. Their entertainment now is 
limited to the occasional singing of sacred songs and to the "play 
parties." The latter name means a rather respectable courting 
arrangement in which intelligence does not always predominate. 
No one can blame the young people — they are only following nat- 
ural instincts. The church and the school should make it their 
business to substitute something more intelligent and profitable. 






A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 107 

When all conditions are considered, the people of Willow Grove 
community are to be congratulated for the progress they have made 
educationally; and these facts are here given for the benefit of 
other communities. The present school should be made better each 
year. Money spent in the maintenance of the school should be 
considered an investment rather than a tax. The entire commu- 
nity should not forget the obligations it owes to former citizens. 
Upon this point, the following is an interesting extract from a 
letter received by the county superintendent soon after this survey 
was made: 

"There could be an interesting collection of incidents gathered 
from the old timers. Aaron Abbott secured a section of land, 
trading for same an old wagon, a span of mustang ponies, and a 
pair of boots. He gave the lot upon which the Willow Grove 
house was built (the old Willow Grove school). He also helped 
to haul the lumber to build the house when the coupling pole of 
his wagon broke, causing the team to run away and in some way 
he became entangled in the harness and lost his life. While read- 
ing the article mentioned, realizing the wonderful development, 
especially along educational lines, the mind runs back to the time 
when the old men of today were boys and the question naturally 
forces itself: Do the boys and girls of today realize and appre- 
ciate the sacrifices made for them by their grandparents? Mr. 
Abbott had a large family, but he realized the importance of edu- 
cation, spending his money, giving his land, and even his life in 
the great cause which is now a living monument to his memory. 
If they are using the house he assisted in building for the teacher's 
home, it has been dedicated to a good purpose." 

PRAIRIE DELL SCHOOL. 

One of the best country schoolhouses in Bell county is that re- 
cently built by the Prairie Dell community, a district located about 
fifteen miles southwest of Belton. It is the culmination of a move- 
ment begun by a few public-spirited citizens, some of whom are 
among the largest property holders in the district. A conference 
was held with the county superintendent, and it was decided to 
hold a mass meeting of citizens to determine what should be done. 
The county superintendent was present at the mass meeting, mak- 



108 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

ing an educational address in wliicli he recommended the issuance 
of bonds in a sufficient amount to guarantee the construction of a 
permanent building. The meeting decided unanimously to peti- 
tion the commissioners' court for an election. 

The election authorized by a practically unanimous vote the 
issuance of $5000 worth of schoolhouse bonds. And in the fall of 

1913 another dilapidated country schoolhouse was supplanted by 
a modern brick building. It has two rooms 23x30 feet and one 
23x60 feet, the last being used both as a schoolroom and as an audi- 
torium. Each room is provided with blackboards, cloakrooms, and 
a modern system of heating and ventilation. The three rooms are 
equipped with teachers' desks, and 175 single desks for the pupils. 
The school owns three and one-half acres of ground. A twenty- 
five cent tax is required to provide for the interest and sinking 
fund of the bonds. In addition the people have recently voted a 
maintenance tax of ten cents. 

There are three teachers, all of whom are experienced. Their 
salaries are $75, $55, and $55 per month for six months. The 
character of service rendered by each is excellent. The principal 
has had three years training in the University. Two of the teach- 
ers have been in the school two years. The principal directs per- 
sonally the athletic activities of the boys, the school having one 
of the best baseball teams among the country schools of Bell county. 
No one of the teachers resides permanently in the district. The 
salaries paid by this school are inadequate to retain good teachers. 

Prairie Dell school has a scholastic enumeration of 131: pupils. 
Last year eighteen pupils were transferred into the district and 
two were transferred out of it. The school during the year 1913- 

1914 enrolled 145 pupils. The fact that twelve boys over seven- 
teen years of age enrolled in the school deserves special mention, 
since pupils of this age ordinarily drop out of country schools. 
Many of the larger pupils work at odd times for their board. The 
per cent of average daily attendance to enrollment in 1913-14 
was 76.5. This excellent record is doubtless due to the whole- 
some environment of the new school building. About four-fifths- 
of the land of the Prairie Dell district is in cultivation, and 
ranges in value from $75 to $150 per acre. Property in the dis- 
trict has an assessed valuation of $211,600. It is a typical agri- 
cultural section. There are eighty families, of whom 30 per cent 



A Stud'i/ of Fural Schools In Texas 



109 




The Old Prairie Dell School. 




The New Prairik Dell School. 



110 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

own and operate their farms, and 70 per cent are tenants. Those 
owning their homes generally have good improvements, many of 
them having windmills and systems of waterworks in their dwell- 
ings. Tenant houses have fewer conveniences. There are no land- 
lords who collect "bonus" rents. The area of the Prairie Dell 
district is only nine square miles; it is very unfortunate that this 
district does not include other smaller schools located within three 
or four miles of it. 

Eighty-five per cent of the people of the district get their mail 
over rural routes. A local telephone system accommodates 87 per 
cent of the homes. There are two local fraternal lodges, one hav- 
ing a membership of seventy-two, the other thirty-five. An active 
woman's club has been organized by the teachers, assisted by 
the county superintendent. The community has two organized 
churches, each of which holds regular services once a month. But 
neither pastor resides in the community. Social activities of the 
young people are limited and the churches have here an oppor- 
tunity for performing a distinct religious service. 

The county farm demonstrator has organized a hoys' corn club, 
this work being done through the school with the aid of the 
teachers. Literary societies should be organized in the school, and 
there should be a greater utilization of the school plant for social 
service. The school needs a library, a laboratory for the teaching 
of elementary science, 7naps, and drinhing fountains. Attention 
should be given to the construction of sanitary outhouses, and, 
above all, the course of study of the public school should be better 
adjusted to the. local needs of the community. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas HI 



VIII. THE EUEAL SCHOOLS OF COLLIN COUNTY. 

Collin county is in the northern part of Texas between the cities 
of Dallas and Sherman. Its area is 828 square miles. It lies 
entirely within the black land belt, and in soil is one of the richest 
counties in the state. Most of the land is now in cultivation, and 
varies in price from $50 to $150 per acre. 

Agriculture is the chief occupation. Corn, cotton, and small 
grain are the principal crops. More cotton and corn are being 
planted now than a few years ago. Profitable hay farms are quite 
numerous, and alfalfa is beginning to attract some attention as a 
forage crop. 

Possibly there is no section of the state that can boast of better 
farm stock than Collin county. Efforts to improve all kinds of 
stock were begun at an early day and practically all the native 
varieties have been displaced by better blood. Good breeds of 
draft stock, driving stock, dairy cattle, hogs, and chickens are to 
be found in connection with most of the farm homes. 

Collin county is well supplied with railroad facilities. It is 
served by the Frisco, the Houston & Texas Central, the Missouri, 
Kansas & Texas railways, and the Dallas- Sherman interurban line. 
The principal railroad towns are Anna, Allen, McKinney, Frisco, 
Prosper, Princeton, Piano, Farmersville, and Melissa. These places 
vary in population from 600 to 7000 people. 

As for the country roads, they could hardly be worse. The soil 
is very waxy, and makes 'the worst sort of mud. "With a heavy 
rain and a little traffic the rich, soft earth of the roadbeds is 
quickly worked up into miles of the most dreadful quagmire. 
There are but six miles of pike road in the county, and one mile 
of that was built by private capital. But the spirit of public enter- 
prise among the people is improving; and recently there has been 
a great awakening, and much public discussion as to the best means 
of providing for the permanent improvement of country roads. 
One good-roads district has been formed, and bonds voted to the 
amount of $450,000. Other road bond elections are now pending 
in the county, and the likelihood is that they will carry by good 
majorities. However, for fear of defeat, good roads campaigns 
are beina: vigorouslv waged in all these localities. 



112 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

In Collin county, as elsewhere, there are a few people who are 
constitutionally opposed to progress of any sort. It is a current 
anecdote in the town of McKinney that on the day of the recent 
road bond election a farmer drove in on the paved square and 
paid a negro 50 cents to clean the mud off of his wagon wheels, 
and immediately went and cast his vote against good roads. Three 
other men who live almost five miles in the country hitched four 
strong mules to a wagon so as to pull through the mud and reg- 
ister their votes against the road bonds. One fellow who was 
bitterly opposed to any increase in his taxes, it is said, had taxable 
property to the extent of one white English bull-dog and a cheap 
Elgin watch. Such blindly improvident men are to be met every- 
where, and their votes and influence have to be overcome; but, 
fortunately, the progressive, public spirited minds are in the ma- 
jority in most places. 

Possibly there is no place in the state where the dreadful con- 
dition of the country roads has been more disastrous in its effects 
on the rural schools. But what is true for Collin county in this 
respect is true in the main for most of the counties in the black 
land belt. Because of the condition of the country roads, more 
than any other one thing, the schools outside of the towns and 
villages are small, isolated, poorly equipped, and poorly attended. 

Influence of Physical and Economic Conditions. 

But for a complete understanding of the rural situation in 
Collin county due consideration must be given to some slight 
physical and economic variations that obtain. Eoughly speaking, 
the county is divided into two almost equal parts, the line of divi- 
sion running almost north and south very nearly through the mid- 
dle of it. The western side was originally open prairie coimtry, 
and the eastern side timber land. Many large farms, now oper- 
ated principally by tenants, are characteristic of the western side; 
while to the east are many small holdings operated by their own- 
ers, though they are quite commonly under mortgage. The prairie 
country was settled first. The original settlers were the best blood 
of the South that remained after the Civil War. They got the 
land cheap, and found the growing of small grain very profitable. 
Many of them prospered, grew wealthy, and later moved to town 



A Study of Rural *SV7too/,s in 'Texas 113 

to live iu ease. Tlie egress of the land owners is causing a cor- 
responding ingress of tenants and the graduual displacement of 
the large fields of small grain by many small fields of corn and 
■cotton. Reapers and threshers are giving away to one-row cnlti- 
vators and "middle-busters" as the number of tenants increases. 

The timber lands to the east, though very fertile, were more 
difficult to adapt to agricultural uses, and consequently were not 
settled until a later day. The farms are small, ranging from 
forty to eighty acres, as a rule, and are planted for the most part 
in corn and cotton. The farm houses on the average are not as 
good as those of the wealthier landlords on the large grain farms 
of the prairie country. But throughout the county, the farms oper- 
ated by their owners have much better homes and more conveni- 
ences than those leased to tenants. 

These physical and economic differences are in part, no doubt, 
responsible for certain differences in the schools of the two sections 
of the county. The larger original farm units in the prairie 
region seem to have been productive of larger neighborhood units 
and ultimately of larger school districts than in the smaller farms 
of the timbered section. It is also quite probable that the roads 
have had a great deal to do in determining the size of the school 
■districts, for in that part of the country where travel is most diffi- 
cult the districts are smallest. In the western half of the county, 
where the country is open and level, there are twenty-five common 
school districts with an average area of fifteen and one-half square 
miles. In the eastern half there are numerous small creeks, and 
the roads are obliged to cross many valleys and bottoms, where they 
become well nigh impassable during the rainy seasons. This sec- 
tion has ninety-two common school districts, with an average area 
•of only 3.2 square miles. 

In the western section, with its greater number of tenant farm- 
ers and absentee landlords, 44 per cent of the common school dis- 
tricts have no local maintenance tax; while in the eastern half, 
where the farms are smaller and customarily operated by their 
o\vners, all but 9.8 per cent of the school districts have voted a 
local tax. To just what extent the indifference and the financial 
inability of the tenant farmers, and the adverse attitude of the 
landlords toward the contributing of their means for the support 



114 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

of public education are respousible for this condition, it was im- 
possible to determine with any degree of accuracy. 

In this connection it is quite interesting to note that 34 per cent 
of the districts, where the tenant population is greatest, voted a 
special tax during the year preceding the time of this study. For 
the stimulus prompting this forward step the zeal of tlie county 
superintendent is in the main responsible. But the encourage- 
ment of public education is coming to be a popular thing, and at 
least a few landlords who were at one time indifferent, and some 
others who were openly opposed to the payment of taxes for the 
educating of other people's children, are now encouraging their 
tenants to vote affirmatively on all issues for better public schools. 
The tenants are also, with the possible exception of most of that 
class who never stay at one place long enough to become fully 
identified with local school and church interests, gradually coming 
to see that it is to their advantage to cast their lot and influence 
. for better schools. 

Farm Tenancy. 

Collin county has no more serious problem to face today than 
that of farm tenancy. It is lowering the standard of the home, 
the country church, and the country school. On the day this 
survey was begun, February 3, 1914, a teacher came into the county 
superintendent's office, and when asked how he was getting along 
with his school work, replied: "Well, I think we are doing a 
little better now, but I tell you our work has been anything but 
satisfactory for the past month. The trouble is, all my patrons 
are tenants and most of them moved Christmas. We were doing 
very nicely up to that time, but now I have only two children that 
were in school before the holidays. It has taken me a month to 
get properly acquainted with my new crowd." The percentage of 
home ownership is usually a very good standard for measuring the 
educational and civic interests of any community. What the pub- 
lic schools of the entire black land belt need more than any other 
one thing is more people to sticlc to the land as their permanent 
homes. Farm tenancy, poor farming, squalid homes, and inferior 
schools arc mutual associates. 

In Collin county you find a combination of the richest soil and 
the poorest cultivation in the state. Though much of the land is 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas * 115 

rolling and the soil is rapidly being washed away, not a terraced 
field was seen in the course of this entire investigation. During 
twelve days of travel over the county, 314 cases of burning the old 
stalks off of the ground in preparation for a new crop were 
counted. Thus the county is being depleted of its fertility. But 
who can blame the tenant for not undertaking what the owner of 
the land is unwilling to do? He must squeeze the soil for all that 
it is worth, and get out of it all that he possibly can in dollars 
and cents. "The farm must suffer at the hands of each while it 
supports them both." 

Where the landowner has moved to town and left a well im- 
proved country home, some fortunate tenant gets the benefit of it 
with all its conveniences; but in most cases the condition of the 
tenant's liome is but little short of wretched. A large family 
crowded together in a small house devoid of all the comforts of 
a real home is no uncommon thing. Beauty and convenience are 
things unknown to the vast majority of the poorer class of tenants. 
Poverty and squalor are in evidence on every country roadside. 

Just whose is the fault? "The sorry tenant's," said a wealthy 
landlord; "they don't try." Then he went on to tell how many 
of them did not have a milk cow or a garden spot or even a 
chicken ; and contended that all these things might be had if they 
would only try, and that there was no use for them to live out of 
tin cans and paper sacks from the nearest grocery store, as many 
of them do. Continuing, he cited a few cases of prosperous tenant 
farmers who had saved money and paid for their homes during 
the past ten or fifteen years; and mentioned still others who pre- 
ferred renting in Collin county to living on their own land else- 
where. Whose is the fault ? ' "I don't know," said a tenant farmer 
— an intelligent, fine looking physical specimen, about twenty- 
secen years old, "I work all the time. It is all I can do to clothe 
and feed my five babies. Land is $150 per acre. As for owning 
a home — well, there's no chance for me." In either case, be it 
where the landlord is harsh in his attitude toward the tenant, or 
where the tenant has lost all hope and drifts about from place to 
place, the effects on the home and the school in the country are 
equally disastrous. At best, a high per cent of farm tenancy in- 
duces an apathy in the public spirit of the community that retards 
enterprise in all directions. 



116 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

While the writer, in the brief time he had to make this investi- 
gation, lieard many bitter charges preferred against the landlords 
as a class, on closer inquiry he was led to believe that in the main 
they were unfounded and that the landlord in most cases has a 
sympathetic attitude toward the tenant. Some of them go so far 
as to encourage their tenants to vote for local taxes for school and 
road maintenance. Only a few instances could be found where 
landlords had actually intimidated tenants that were disposed to 
vote for a local school tax. One removed a tenant, another raised 
the rent, and several made vigorous personal canvasses of their 
respective communities in opposition to proposed school taxes. 
Still another took advantage of the fact that most of the tenants 
in the district where his real estate was located happened to move 
out last year ; and before the new ones who moved in to take their 
places had been in residence long enough to become qualified voters 
in this district, he had an election called, and voted off the local 
school tax. 

In most of the black land counties the economic and social 
aspects of farm tenancy constitute an almost insurmountable bar- 
rier in the way of a thorough and complete system of public edu- 
cation. A study of the distribution of tenancy throughout the 
United States will show that those sections having the most fertile 
soil, with the exception of a few fruit growing districts where the 
farms are very small, have the highest percentage of tenants. The 
more fertile the soil the higher the price of the land, and the 
higher the price the harder the land is to get. 

For this reason the percentage of tenancy in the black land belt 
of Texas is unusually high. A further study will show that farm 
tenancy is increasing throughout the country. In 1880, 25 per 
cent of all the farms in the United States were operated by tenants; 
in 1890, 28 per cent; in 1900, 35 per cent; in 1910, 37 per cent. 
At this rate in thirty years half of the farms will be in the hands 
of tenants. But already conditions in Collin county are worse 
than this, for 69 per cent of the farmers do not own the fields 
they cultivate. 

Large Districts Versus Small Districts. 

In the administration of public education Collin county is 
divided into 134 administrative units, 17 of which are independent 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 117 

districts and 117 are common school districts. The 17 independ- 
ent school districts include most of the little towns of the county, 
and have an average area of ten and one-half square miles each. 
Most of these schools are well attended, well taught, and have very 
good equipment. 

The average area of the 117 common school districts is only five 
and one-half square miles. This does not compare very favorably 
with the excellent system of schools in Harris county, where, it 
will be remembered, the average area of the common school dis- 
tricts is 32.5 square miles. The seventeen independent school dis- 
tricts of the towns and villages have property valued at $331,676, 
or an average of $69.26 for each child enumerated in them; while 
the 117 common school districts have $91,212 worth of school prop- 
erty, or $10.82 per child within the free school age. Thus it can 
be seen that the country school children are at a decided disad- 
vantage in point of physical equipment for school purposes as com- 
pared with the children in the towns and villages. 

The scholastic enumeration for Collin county for the school 
year 1913-14 gives 13,033 children entitled to free school privi- 
leges. Of these 4789 are in the independent districts, and 8244 
in the common school districts. The children in the common 
school districts are taught by 173 teachers, with an average of 48 
pupils each ; while those of the independent districts are taught 
by 124 teachers, with an average of 38 pupils each. This, taken 
togetlier with the additional fact that the rural teacher has, as a 
rule, from four to six grades, while the village or town teacher 
rarely has over two grades, and usually but one, leads us to see 
very readily that the country teachers are at a tremendous dis- 
advantage as compared with those who labor in the town and 
• village schools of the independent districts. The generally over- 
crowded condition of the country school combined with the facts 
that the teachers are often young, inexperienced, lacking in knowl- 
edge of child life, and withal quite limited in academic training, 
accounts to a very great degree for the inefficiency of the average 
country school as compared with the more carefully graded, better 
equipped, better taught, and less crowded school of the town or 
city. Under such circumstances the country child does not have 
a fair chance. For this reason many of the families that the 



118 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

country can least afford to lose are constantly moving to town to 
educate their children. 

To say nothing of the character of the service rendered, the 
small country school, when it is poorly attended, is one of the 
most expensive institutions in our entire educational system. It 
costs the public school funds just as much to maintain school one 
day when half the children enrolled are present as it does when 
all of them attend. The smaller the average daily attendance 
the greater will be the per capita cost per day for those who do 
attend: e. g., if a teacher with thirty pupils is paid three dollars 
per day and all of them are present, their instruction costs the 
state only ten cents each per day ; while if half, or fifteen, of them 
attend, the cost of instruction still remains three dollars, or twenty 
cents per day for each one in actual attendance. As shown by 
the teachers' sworn reports for the school year 1913-14, the most 
costly schools in Collin county when figured on the basis of actual 
daily attendance were among the small one-teacher places. At the 
following one-teacher schools, where the attendance was \ery irreg- 
ular, the cost to the school funds for each day attended by each 
pupil was as follows: Enloe, 29 cents; Higgins, 21 cents; Thomp- 
son, 31 cents; Bois d'arc, 19 cents; Old Celina, 30 cents; Burger, 
20. cents; Sister Grove, 20 cents. In the town of McKinney the 
cost is approximately 11 cents per day. This difference in cost is 
clue to the difference in attendance. As a rule the smaller the 
school the poorer the attendance. Poor attendance means extrav- 
agance and 'Waste of school funds. But the waste in finance, which 
is a quantitative thing that can be measured and expressed numer- 
ically, is possibly not near so great as the qualitative, or immeas- 
urable waste of brain power that must inevitably befall the child 
in the poorly attended, poorly taught, small school. 

The first arguments offered by the opponents to consolidating 
these small, inefficient rural schools is: "When you enlarge the 
district the distance to school will be so great the children cannot 
attend." At first thought it looks as though this might be true; 
but as a matter of actual practice it is not. The representatives 
who made this investigation noted nothing more critically and 
carefully than the advisability of consolidating small rural schools. 
They were gratified to learn that in every county examined there 
was not a single instance in which, after a school had been en- 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 119 

larged and improved, the percentage of actual attendance had not 
increased correspondingly. Provide and equip a plant that really 
merits the name of a school, and the children will attend, regard- 
less of the distance. This was found to be true even among the 
worst of the muddy roads of Collin county. Note the following 
case of the Dixon consolidated school. 

Dixon Consolidated School. 

It will be recalled that the average area of the common school 
districts in the eastern half of the county, where the roads are 
worst, is 3.2 square miles each. In the extreme northeastern por- 
tion of the county it was seen fit to consolidate five of these smaller 
districts so as to make two larger ones. The new Dixon Consoli- 
dated School was formed by the union of Old Dixon with Hope- 
well and two-thirds of Eichards, each of which maintained a one- 
teacher school. The total scholastic enrollment for the three 
schools last year was 135 pupils, whose total average attendance 
was 57, or 45.6 per cent, for each day school was taught; while 
the ncAv Dixon Consolidated School this year had an enrollment 
of 99 pupils with an average attendance of 65, or 65.6 per cent, 
each day that school was taught. Or in other words, the 99 chil- 
dren in the new consolidated district of about nine square miles, 
with two strong teachers, the man principal, a graduate of Burleson 
College and the lady assistant, trained at the Denton Normal, have 
attended school more than the entire 125 did while distributed 
among the three small schools last year. 

Last year three teachers were employed in the three schools at a 
cost of $175 per month; this year two teachers are employed at a 
salary of $140 per month. Last year the cost per capita on actual 
daily attendance was 15.8 cents per day; this year it has been 11.3 
cents. Economically this is an improvement of 28.5 per cent over 
what it was last year; while in point of general efficiency and 
improvement in the character of service rendered, it marks the 
beginning of a new era in the life of the community. It might 
be well to add that the present county superintendent of Collin 
county, when he was a young man just beginning in the profes- 
sion, taught for seven years in the locality where this consolidation 
has Ijeen made. He knows all the people and the local conditions 



120 



Bulletin of the University of Texas 



in that part of the county thoroughly. This might well be inter- 
preted as a strong argument for a longer tenure in office for the 
county superintendent than is customary in Texas; for if this man 
had been in office long enough to become acquainted with the 
entire county as well as he is with the Dixon community, he could 
effect more consolidations and render greater service to the public 
schools than would be possible on short acquaintance. 




Dixon Consoliuated School. 

This building was constructed from the material of three old one-room 
:^choolhouses, and the proceeds of the sale of the three old building sites sup- 
plemented by $300 from the community. Thirty-three of the thirty-six fann- 
ers in this community own their homes. 



Lucas School. 

As another concrete demonstration that adequate equipment and 
competent teachers will swell the attendance, even in tlic face of 
distance and bad roads, the case of Lucas school may be cited. 
This school is located in the open country, nine miles from Mc- 
Kinney. In this instance no c'onsolidation has been formed, but 
three years ago the school patron? and the W. 0. W. lodge, which 
lias 133 members at this place, decided to co-operate with each 
other in the construction of a new school building and a lodge hall. 



^4 Study of Eurul Schools in Texas 



121 



Eighteen Imndred dollars was raised by private subscription for 
this purpose. Two comfortable classrooms were fitted up and 
furnished with eighty new single desks, and the lodge hall, 45x55 
feet, overhead was to be used as the community's social gathering 
place. Two capable lady teachers were secured from the North 
Texas State Normal School at Denton, and have taught there con- 
tinuously since. Note the progress that has been made. 

At the time the two new classrooms were completed and fur- 
nished everyone thought they would afford room for the school for 
all time to come. In a new country where people are constantly 




Lucas School Building and Lodge Hall. 



moving in, it is not uncommon to see a community outgrow its 
school facilities in a very short time; but in a mature country like 
Collin county, it is unusual. The excellent work of the new school 
soon began to advertise itself. Pupils from outside the district 
were attracted to it, and before the end of the second year the 
entire seating capacity was taken. This year a third teacher was 
emploj^ed. A new room will be added before the next session of 
school begins, and one of -the neighboring districts will, at its own 
request, most likely be annexed to it. 

During the spring of 1914, the Department of Extension of the 



123 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

University of Texas conducted a "Better Country Life Campaign" 
in Collin county. Tliree meetings were held at Lucas, the results 
of which are partly responsible for the progress reported in the 
following recent communication from the county superintendent : 

"Prospects are looking good for another year. Lucas is pre- 
paring for three teachers, which will enable it to do high school 
work next year. Parker and Stintson, just south and east of 
Lucas, have consolidated and are building a modern three-room 
house in which three teachers will be employed. The Winningkoff 
school district, just north of Lucas, will have a meeting one night 
this week to discuss the proposition of raising the school taxes and 
of employing a third teacher in the school. Each of these two 
schools is situated two and one-half miles from Lucas, and quite 
a number of the patrons of each district were at the meeting at 
Lucas conducted under the direction of the Department of Exten- 
sion; and their progiam has had a great deal to do with these 
improvements.'" 

While Collin county cannot, at present, possibly carry consoli- 
dation to such an extent as Harris county, with its excellent coun- 
try roads, has done, yet consolidation, on a smaller scale, is its 
one hope of improvement. A rural school district of thirty or 
forty square miles would be too large because of the bad highways; 
but districts of from three to six square miles, as many of them 
are, are entirely too small. 

Conclusions and Recommendations. 

1. After having looked over the field carefully, the writer be- 
lieves that an area of twelve to twenty square miles would be the 
most practical unit to adopt for rural school purposes in this 
county at present. 

2. Collin county has a number of village and town schools that 
are well equipped and well taught, but the country schools are very 
inferior and below the average for the state. 

3. Bad roads and farm tenancy are the two greatest hindrances 
in the way of good country schools. 

4. The smallest common school districts found in the entire 
course of tlii:^ ^■'^lr\ev are in Collin countv. 



cl study of Rural Schools in Texas 13.' 




Collin County Roads after a Continuous Fviun. 




Supt. W. E. Foster Visiting Schools in Collin L ouuty When the Roads are Dry. 



124 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

5. The poorest attended and most expensive schools are among 
the smaller rnral districts. 

6. Some clerical help should be provided for the office of the 
county superintendent. He needs to spend his entire time in the 
field among the schools, but as it is, more than half of his time 
is consumed in the office. There is no econom)' in having a $1500 
man do the work of a $40 office clerk. 

7. There should be a map of the entire county showing the 
exact boundaries of each school district. As it is, there is much 
irregularity in the rendition of property for school taxes. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 125 

IX. THE RURAL SCHOOLS OP I^ACOGDOCHES COUNTY. 

Location^ Tocography, Transportation, Communication. 

Nacogdoches county is situated in the eastern part of the state, 
just one county removed from the Louisiana line. The surface 
is broken with hills and valleys, and is well timbered with pine 
and hardwood trees. The soil is gray sand, red clay, and red 
sandy loam, and yields well in cotton, corn, tobacco, peanuts, and 
almost all kinds of fruit and vegetables. There is a large acreage 
still available for new settlers, and unimproved cut-over land can 
be had at from three to ten dollars per acre, and improved land 
at from ten to fifty dollars per acre. Agriculture and lumbering 
are the chief industries of the people. The present population of 
27,406 persons is an increase of more than 10 per cent over what 
it was ten years ago. 

In area this county has 962 square miles. It is well supplied 
with railroads and other means of transportation and communica- 
tion. It has five railroads, 175 miles of sand-clay roads, 680 rural 
telephones, and rural mail service for more than nine thousand 
of its people. Forty-nine daily papers are delivered to the farmers 
on the four rural routes that go out from Nacogdoches. During 
the past ten 3^ears the rural telephones and the rural mail service 
have been factors of inestimable value in stimulating the rural 
public mind and in awakening new civic and educational ideals 
among the country people. Their value increased just so much 
more by the fact that travel in the county is generally difficult, 
because many of the roads are sandy and unlevel, and the annual 
rainfall of forty-eight inches keeps them in bad condition in the 
low places much of the time. 

County and Community Fairs. 

Possibly no one educational agency has had so great an influence 
in a material way as the Nacogdoches County Fair, which was 
inaugurated four years ago. Until this time the amount of pure 
blooded stock in the county was alarmingly small. The first year 
of the fair there were one hog, six cattle, and a few chickens 
entered that were either registered or subject to registration. In 



126 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

1913, four years later, there were on exhibition 165 registered 
hogs; 75 registered Jersey cattle; 75 blooded colts, 15 of which 
were entitled to registration; and a great number of fine blooded 
chickens, turkeys, and ducks. In four years' time the number of 
registered hogs in the county has increased from six to more than 
four hundred. The dairy and poultry industries have been bene- 
fited proportionately. 

A local editor said : '"The exhibition of farm products locally 
grown is leading to better agriculture on the part of those who 
attend the fairs. Nothing has ever stimulated our people into the 
idea of better farming half so much as the county fair." Mx. 
D. L. Campbell of Appleby was awarded the first prizes for the 
best ear of corn, the largest ear of corn, and the best ten ears of 
corn in Texas at the National Corn Show at Dallas, February, 

1914. He grew this corn from a native variety that had been 
improved by Mr. Jim Greer, the county farm demonstrator. The 
1913 prize acre of corn in the county produced 92.5 bushels. It 
is in one of the best agricultural sections in the county, where a 
local school district fair was held the year before. 

The Nacogdoches County Fair has a capitalization of $3500, 
with 92 stockholders and 120 acres of ground leased for twenty 
years. County Superintendent W. B. Hargis is secretary of the 
fair, and fully appreciates its value as an instrument of education 
for the people with whom he labors. This year each school dis- 
tinct in the county will have a booth in the fair ground, where 
numerous specimens of school work with pictures of champion 
debaters, spellers, athletes, and athletic teams, together with speci- 
mens of its best farm products, such as corn, cotton, ribbon cane, 
pumpkins, fruits, and vegetables, will be on exhibition. Several 
prizes will be offered, and the competition among the schools to 
secure them will be interesting and profitable to the cause of edu- 
cation tliroughout the county. 

The value of the school district fair as a means of getting people 
together and awakening a hearty educational spirit is well exem- 
plified in the case of the Martinsville school, fifteen miles east of 
Nacogdoches. Until the past three years the old one-room school 
building, constructed forty-one years ago, was still in use. Mr. 
G. F. Fuller, a citizen of this community, invited the county board 
of education to hold an educational rally at Martinsville, July 1, 



.4 Study of Rural Schools in Texas 



127 



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128 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

1911, to see if a consolidation could be effected. The consolida- 
tion movement failed, bnt the stimulus bore fruit. The meeting 
was a combined educational rally and communit}- fair, where many 
of the local farm products were on exhibition in the old school- 
house, and the blessing of getting together to make common cause 
of the matter of education came to the people. It was from tliis 
date that the new life of the community began. In three years 
Martinsville has grown from a one-teacher school to a three-teacher 
school with a new modern building and three well furnished class- 
rooms. 

Through the enterprise of the county farm demonstrator, the 
boys' corn club work has been very successful, and many prizes 
have been awarded at the county fair. One of the state experi- 
mental farms is located one mile from the county site, and though 
many people do not fully understand its purpose and meaning, 
more farmers are coming to the director, Mr. McNess, for advice 
than was true three years ago. In speaking of the agricultural 
exhibits and the demonstration work in the county, a Nacogdoches 
pastor said: 

"They have done much to wake our people up, and the psycho- 
logical effects are noticeable both in the church and in the school. 
The greatest trouble heretofore with our people has been their 
thorough-going contentment and general disposition to resent all 
innovations. They are now beginning to cliange their attitude, 
and I attribute a great deal of it to the new era of material prog- 
ress that has recently dawned upon our county." 
, County and community fairs are invatuahle factors in public 
education. 

Social Recreation and Athletic Sports. 

There is scarcely a good country school in the county that has 
not at some time introduced the box supper as a means of social 
entertainment. In some communities three or four are given each 
school term. Often they are accompanied by short programs of 
local talent, and, as a rule, they are community affairs participated 
in by all the people, young and old. They are an excellent anti- 
dote for the grumness of old age, and furnish excellent amusement 
for the young people and children. In addition they also con- 
stitute a valuable source of revenue for the various activities of 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 129 

the school, such as a library, athletic paraphernalia, expense money 
for athletic meets, or even funds for painting the schoolhouse or 
purchasing school equipment. One school in this county seated 
the schoolhouse from the proceeds of a single box supper. 

A favorite method is for each young lady to contribute a cake, 
which is sold to the highest bidder. In some instances the for- 
tunate purchaser is given the right to eat supper with the young 
lady whose cake he purchases, and in other localities the rules 
permit him to accompany her home. Strange to say, the most 
liberal donors or purchasers are often those who oppose bitterly 
the levying of local school taxes. In one case a penurious old 
bachelor, who had just returned to the courting ring after an 
absence of nearly twenty years, became interested in a cake pre- 
pared by a good-looking lady teacher. He was the successful bid- 
der, and procured it for the substantial sum of $80. While he 
had the privilege of accompanying the young lady home, a dis- 
tance of one hundred yards, it may be truthfully said that 80 
cents per step made the stroll rather expensive. Though time has 
proved that he invested in a losing venture, yet this amount of 
his horded funds, which could not have been obtained by any other 
method, was secured for a most worthy purpose. 

While box suppers are a legitimate means of raising school rev- 
enue, their greatest value lies in the fact that they afford an oppor- 
tunity for an expression of the community's social life. Any effort 
which properly stimulates the social instincts and promotes good 
feeling cannot fail to help the school, the church, and the com- 
munity. This is well illustrated by what a picnic and school rally 
did at Lone Pine two years ago. The schoolhouse had gone to 
rack, and there had been no school for three years. The doors 
were down, the windows were out, the flue gone, and a man could 
crawl through the top of the roof without touching a shingle. In 
the entire history of the place there had never been a school term 
of more than three months. Now there is a new building and a 
six months' term of school. This is primarily the result of a 
good social warming up, and the inspiration that comes from 
numbers and associations, for the people of this community are 
spending more time with each other than ever before. In speak- 
ing of this school one of the patrons said: 

''When you start something it attracts other people. Folks be- 



130 Bulletin of the University of Texas 




Garrison — The Champion Basketball Team of the County, 1013. 



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Gariison vs. Chireno, 1913. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 13! 

gin to move in when a new schoolhouse goes up in east Texas. 
There are fifteen more school children at Lone Pine now than, 
there were one year ago." 

Interscholastic contests during the past three years have con- 
tributed very materially in arousing school spirit and in getting 
people and schools better acquainted with each other. It has been 
the policy of the present administration to put a tennis court or 
a basketball court on every school ground in the county. At pres- 
ent there are twelve schools that have adequate equipment and 
organized teams for these games. Three years ago there was not 
a basketball team in the county. 

But the contests among the schools are not limited to athletics 
entirely. Contests in debating, declamation, and spelling are 
equally as popular. The Interscholastic Debating and Declama- 
tion League, as outlined and directed by the Department of Exten- 
sion of the University of Texas, has a strong organization in this 
count}^, and last year a twelve-year-old boy of Nacogdoches won 
the first place in the district, which qualified him to enter the- 
state contest at Austin, where he distinguished himself. 

Finances and Physical Features of the Common Schools. 

There are sixty-eight common school districts in the county with 
an average area of approximately thirteen square miles each, and 
a total of 4666 white children within the free school age. Three 
consolidations have been made during the past year, and two others 
are now pending. All but five of the common school districts 
have voted a school tax, and $11,851.70 was raised for school pur- 
poses by local taxation last year. 

The county superintendent said: 

"The greatest trouble I have had is to get the people to under- 
stand the principle and working of the local tax. When they once 
come to understand it they are all right, but, as a rule, it takes 
a year's persistent campaigning in a community to carry a school 
tax election. During my tenure in office, five of the wealthiest land 
holders in the county have offered to go down into their pockets 
and contribute to school purposes rather than vote a tax. They 
are not essentially opposed to a local tax, but they were suspicious- 
of it and preferred not to get it started." 



132 Bulletin of the University of Texas 




Gushing Higli School Basketball Team, 1913. 




County Interscholastic Athletic Meet, 1913 — 1000 People Present. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 133 

In developing a country where new people are moving in and 
where so much unimproved farming land is found as in Nacog- 
doches count}^, a strong rural school is a very material factor in 
helping to enhance local real estate values. Realizing this, the 
wealthier sawmill owners, who have large areas of cut-over land 
now open for settlement, unanimously encourage the voting of 
local school taxes. 

"Yes," said one of them, "I am in favor of it. Let the people 
vote a school tax and maintain a good school. I shall gladly pay 
my part, for it will double the value of my land." The sawmill 
companies are the heaviest taxpayers in the county, and not a 
single instance was found where a local school tax was paid grudg- 
ingly or with complaint. The following is a typical example: 
The Brewer's Chapel district has a fifty-cent tax which yields 
$583.58. The Frost-Johnson Lumber Company pays $448.10 of 
this and the Angelina Lumber Company $78.87. In speaking of 
it one of the patrons said: "As long as the lumber companies 
contribute $500, we people who live here and get the benefits will 
pay the rest." 

In Nacogdoches county, as in many other counties in Texas, 
there has been much irregularity in assessing and collecting school 
taxes because of a lack of definite knowledge as to the exact loca- 
tion of property and the boundary lines of the several school dis- 
tricts. For this reason it has been impossible to find all the prop- 
erty liable to taxation for school purposes, and the school finances 
have suffered accordingly. Last year Superintendent Hargis pre- 
pared lists of the property taxpayers in each school district, to- 
gether with the assessment of each taxpayer, and sent them to the 
local trustees for correction. The results were astonishing. Many 
new names were added to the accredited list of school taxpayers, 
and considerable property previously missed by oversight or false 
rendition was found. One 1700-acre tract of land, one 600-acre 
tract, one 700-acre tract, and many smaller holdings that had 
been escaping local school taxes were discovered. By checking up 
the taxable property of the county in this way, the school funds 
of many districts were very substantially increased. These are 
some typical examples of the gains made over the previous year: 
District No. 33 increased from $184.77 to $267.01; District No. 



134 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

35, from $207.10 to $241.73; District No. 48, from $127.60 to 
$583.58. 

This irregularity in the assessing and collecting of local school 
taxes is as true for dozens of other counties in Texas as it has 
been for Nacogdoches county. As a rule, the cause lies in a con- 
dition rather than in the faithlessness of any public official. The 
remedy is within the power of the commissioners' court. An excel- 
lent investment that the commissioners' courts of Texas can make 
for the public school children of their respective counties is to 
provide a map that accurately shows the houndaries of every puhlic 
school district in the county. 

Until this is done, inaccurate district boundaries and indefinite 
knowledge as to the exact location of property will continue to 
•encourage laxness and irregularity in the rendition, assessment, and 
collecting of local school taxes. Indeed, there will continue to be 
no inconsiderable amount of property in some counties included 
in no school district at all. And so long as the office of county 
superintendent continues to be a political one, there will continue 
to be at least a few men in it so intimidated and overcome by 
political cowardice that they will never have the courage to do 
what Superintendent Hargis has done toward collecting the taxes 
justly due the public schools in Nacogdoches county. 

The past four year's have been a remarkable era in the construc- 
tion of new school buildings, and the contagion has spread through- 
out the county. Twenty-three motley old structures have been 
replaced by new and better houses during this time. Pine lumber 
is the universal material, and is quite often supplied to school 
boards by local sawniills at the actual cost of production. Prox- 
imity to the source of lumber supply makes it possible to erect a 
common frame building cheaper in east Texas than in any other 
part of the state. 

Most of the new schoolhouses of the county show a few small 
defects that might have been avoided had all the plans and speci- 
fications been furnished and the contracts let by the county board 
and the county superintendent. Most of them have unsightly, 
useless cupolas on them, and in many instances the windows are 
not grouped so as to give the best lighting. The average school 
trustee seldom shares in the responsibility of constructing a school 
'i)uilding more than once in a lifetime, and is thoroughly inexperi- 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 135 

enced in such an undertaking. If experience is worth anything, 
Nacogdoches county would have a better class of rural school build- 
ings today had all those built during the past four or five years 
been designed by the same man or some specific body of men. 

Recommendations. 

1. Superintendent E. F. Davis of the Nacogdoches High School 
is president of the county board of education. His influence as 
an educator is felt throughout the county. Every county board 
in the state should have at least one professionally trained school 
man on it. 

2. A majority of the rural teachers are ladies. In some of the 
one-teacher schools they are walking as far as two and one-half 
miles to procure board and accommodations. No teacher can do 
the best work under such conditions. Trustees should give such 
matters their attention, and provide a remedy where possible. 

3. North Church school was annexed to Nacogdoches in 1913. 
Formerly it had three teachers. At present it is a ward school 
of Nacogdoches, and employs two teachers. One teacher at $50 
per month has been eliminated by a transportation wagon for $30 
per month that conveys all the children above the seventh grade, 
eleven in number, to Nacogdoches, where they get nine months of 
school instead of seven. School boards should keep posted as to 
the success of this public transportation wagon, and adopt the 
plan wherever efficiency and economy among the schools can be 
gained by it. 

4. There are twenty-nine negro schools in the county. The 
greatest waste of the public school funds is on these negro schools. 
They are poorly housed, poorly taught, and poorly attended; and 
withal, are made to conform to an educational system planned 
entirely for the whites. 

Chireno Public School in Nacogdoches County. 

In the extreme eastern part of the county at the little village 
of Chireno is one of the best organized small schools in Nacog- 
doches county. The state funds apportioned to this school are 
supplemented by a fifty-cent special school tax levied on the 
$210,400 of taxable property within the district. Upon this sup- 



136 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

plementary tax the physical life of the school is largely dependent^ 
and the hard fight that was originally necessary to carry the tax 
constitutes one of the most interesting pieces of school history 
connected with the community. 

To begin with, most of the farms are operated by tenants, there 
being fifteen land owners and forty-one farm tenants in the dis- 
trict. Four of the wealthiest and most influential men of the 
community own large farms, and in the little town have small 
retail stores, which are essentially commissaries for supplying their 
tenants and hired laborers. They all stood for the school tax and 
a better school. The strange thing and the matter of most in- 
terest is, the bitterest opponents of the tax were among the farm 
tenants who would pay the least of it and get the greatest benefits- 
from it. One poor fellow who had seven children within the free 
school age and whose only property listed for taxation was one 
Jersey cow that had not had the taxes paid on her for three years^ 
and is noAv on the delinquent list, got alarmingly exercised over 
the proposed school tax and cast his influence against it over the 
protest of his landlord, who was willing and anxious to pay it. 
However, most of those who were terrified at the idea of increasing 
the taxes for the benefit of the school are now well pleased with 
its working. The trouble was, they did not understand it. 

At present the school has four well equipped classrooms and 
an auditorium seated with 250 opera chairs. A new piano has 
been recently purchased, and is now being paid for by the children 
on the installment plan. On the school grounds there are tennis 
and basketball courts, race tracks, a baseball diamond, and a small 
agricultural garden. Four teachers are employed, and 169 pupils- 
were enrolled during the scholastic year, 1912-13. 

Most of the success of this excellent little school is due to the 
policy and ability of the school board to find and employ none but 
the most capable teachers. Many well meaning school boards fail 
in this respect because they have not the ability to judge and select 
the kind of executives, instructors, and organizers best qualified 
and adopted to meet the needs of their respective communities. 
The present school board consists of three men — a farmer, a book- 
keeper, and a doctor. The farmer and the bookkeeper are two of 
the most influential and best informed men in the district, and 
have been in office four years and three years, respectively. The 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 



137 



physician is an ex-teacher, a graduate of the University of Texas, 
and has served on the school board for one year only. During the 
past year he delivered a course of twenty lectures to the high school 
on physiology, hygiene, and sanitation, which were highly instruc- 
tive and much appreciated by the students. 

At present four teachers are employed. The principal is a man 
thirty years old. He was a student at the University of Texas 
for three years, and has been in his present position for four years. 
He has recently been re-elected for another year at a salary of 




Chireno Public School. 

$1200 with the privilege of going away during the summer to 
attend school. The first assistant was graduated from the Hunts- 
ville Normal, and later attended the University of Texas two years. 
The third assistant was educated at the Huntsville Normal, and 
the fourth assistant at the Indiana Training School for Teachers. 
In addition to their academic preparation, these teachers have 
strong personalities, and are full of the kind of energy that means 
so much for success in the schoolroom. They possibly constitute 
the strongest small school faculty in the county. 



138 



Bulletin of the University of Texas 



Much of the success of this school is due to the skill of the 
teachers in organizing and directing the social, literary, and ath- 
letic activities of the community. By these means more students, 
especially the older ones, have been held in school than would have 
otherwise been possible. There is a musical organization and a 
young people's dramatic club of seventeen members, which do 
much to enliven and make the social interests of the community 




Chireno Boys' Basketball Team. 

worth while. The principal of the school is director of the inter- 
scholastic debating and declamation league of the county, and 
Chireno will be represented by two debaters in the next county 
contest held at Nacogdoches. All the athletic teams are strong, 
and last year the Chireno school won second place in the county 
interscholastic track meet. A University Home and School League, 
recently organized, has rendered several interesting programs. 
Many of the village schools of east Texas would do well to emulate 
the example set by Chireno. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 139 

X. THE EURAL SCHOOLS OF FISHEE COUNTY. 

ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL SITUATION. 

Fisher county, organized in 1886, lies in central west Texas, 
bordering the 100th meridian. The area of the county is 836 
square miles; the annual rainfall is 35 inches. Excepting a few 
small mountains in the northwestern and the southwestern por- 
tions of the county the land is level and rolling. As a rule, the 
soil is red and sandy. Alluvial soils are found in the land drained 
by the Double Mountain Eiver and by the Clear Fork of the 
Brazos. 

Agriculture and stock raising are the principal occupations. 
The total value of farm products in 1910 was $1,052,295, this 
amount being approximately one-fifth of the value of farm prod- 
ucts in Bell county for the same year. Cotton constitutes about, 
one-half the value of the agricultural products. Eeceipts from the 
sale of animals reach about one-fourth of a million dollars per year. 

Land constitutes nearly four-fifths of the county's resources, 
having an average value of $18.50 per acre. The number of farms 
showed the remarkable increase from 519 in 1900 to 1839 in 1910. 
They have an average size of 243.6 acres, of which the improved 
parts average 75.4 acres. Even though the lands are cheap, only 
43.4 per cent of the farms are operated by owners, while 56.1 per 
cent of them are operated by tenants. In 1914 the farm houses 
of both landlords and tenants gave evidences of neglect, such con- 
ditions being due in part to several successive years of drouth. 

Several railways supply the needs of the people in the southern, 
eastern, and northern parts of the county; but there are no rail- 
ways in the central and western parts. Dirt roads through the 
county are not the best; on the other hand, owing to the peculiar 
soil formation, few of the roads are bad. The county has made 
no investment in permanent roads except in a few places in the 
shinnery sand, where graded roads have been constructed. Bridges 
are in excellent condition. There is no reason why the conditions 
of the roads should be a barrier either to industrial or educational 
progress. Friendly rivalry exists among several thriving towns 
which are generally awake to commercial advantages. For exam- 
ple, the town of Eoby has regular trade days, which are attended 



140 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

by the country people for miles around. The merchants co-operate 
in this movement, giving prizes to farmers. On one of these days, 
the writer counted more than 200 country vehicles. The arrange- 
ment of trade daj^s not only has a commercial value, but it also 
promotes social intercourse and co-operation between the town and 
the country. 

The enthusiasm of the Farmers' Union membership is worthy 
of mention. The union has eight separate local organizations with 
an active membership of 250. The county organization maintains 
a warehouse and cottonseed house at Rotan. The union employs 
a cotton grader who is sent to short term schools and institutes 
at the expense of the union. This policy has evidently proved 
to be a wise investment. Members of the union own a co-operative 
store at Rotan, which, in the opinion of many of the farmers, has 
prevented excessive prices to consumers. 

There is a lack of industrial organization among the boys and 
girls upon the farm. This is due largely to the fact that no one 
has assumed leadership. The employment of a county farm dem- 
onstrator to initiate industrial organizations through the schools 
would l)e a profi.talle investment. 

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS. 

According to the census of 1910, Fisher county had 2415 fam- 
ilies. About 2000 of these families reside in the country. There 
are very few foreigners and only one negro listed in the rural 
population. 

The number of rural telephones is about 500. Wliile they con- 
stitute a network extending over practically every community, 
they are more numerous in the northern part of the county where 
the population is densest. Approximately 60 per cent of the homes 
receive the benefits of the rural free mail delivery. 

A large per cent of the schoolhouses, especially those constructed 
within the last few years by bond issues, are provided with audi- 
toriums. Many community meetings are held in the schoolhouses. 
The social activities are generally connected with church and school 
affairs. In many cases the teachers have assumed leadership, giv- 
ing entertainments of various kinds in connection with the school. 
While more has been done in this respect than is usually done in 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 141 

rural communities, there still needs to be a broader social utiliza- 
tion of the school plant under the leadership of the teachers. 
Parent-teachers' meetings, boys' debating clubs, girls' cooking and 
sewing clubs, and Home and School League should be organized 
in every community where auditoriums are available. 

Many of the schools, encouraged by the county superintendent, 
have promoted social center work by friendly contests in debating, 
declamation, spelling, and athletics. One contest brought a school 
to appreciate the best there was within its pupils, although noth- 
ing was won except a spelling match. The idea of this small 
school competing for honors against a certain big school in con- 
tests of debating, declamation, athletics, and spelling was at first 
considered a Joke. But the winning of a spelling match made the 
entire school enthusiastic, causing the pupils to enter the county 
contest with a belief that they were not inferior to the pupils of 
other schools. 

Fifteen schools have basketball teams with equipment, and many 
have baseball teams. The teachers have learned that the surplus 
energy of the pupils must somewhere find an outlet. If this 
energy does not find an outlet in play directed by the teacher, it 
will find expression in fighting, idleness, and insubordination. 
These contests eradicate many difficulties from the schoolroom, 
furnishing at the same time an opportunity for developing the 
social instincts by means of public games and contests among the 
different schools. The county superintendent and the principals 
of the town schools in the county have given encouragement and 
assistance to the development of clean athletics among the country 
schools. In only one or two instances did the board of trustees 
offer serious objection to the direction of such activities. The 
teachers of Fisher county are commended for the personal interest 
tvhich they are taking in athletics, and for the friendly contests 
developed among the different schools. 

The condition of the country churches in Fisher county is not 
unlike tliat generally found in other counties. Intensive church 
work is limited principally to two denominations, each of which 
maintains twenty-two organized churches. One of these denomi- 
nations owns nine church buildings, the other twelve. Of the 
forty-four churches maintained by these two denominations, not 
a single rural church employs a pastor for full time. The pastors 



143 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

generally have from two to five churches each, and only four live- 
in the communities where they preach. As a rule, each country 
church contributes from $75 to $150 per year to the pastor's salary. 
Very few pastors are enabled to participate in the social and indus- 
trial activities of their respective churches. The leading preachers 
are waking up to the need of fewer and stronger churches. One 
pastor stated that he had been preaching for nineteen years, both 
in Texas and in New Mexico, and that he had found it necessary 
during this time to organize only three new churches. His posi- 
tion was that the present organizations should be enlarged and 
perfected before new organizations are attempted. 

These facts indicate fundamental weaknesses which must be cor- 
rected if the country churches are to become thrifty and useful. 
There should he more resident pastors whose time should he avail- 
ahle for community hetterment during the entire week. Salaries 
should he at least large enough to enable the pastors to hecome 
business men to the extent of meeting promptly their living ex- 
penses. This can best he accomplished by strengthening present 
organizations and by discouraging the establishment of too many 
churches. It is also evident that the church should assume a 
larger worh in directing the activities of the young people. 

EDUCATIONAL STATUS AND TENDENCIES. 

Course of Study. 

The course of study recommended by the State Department of 
Education is followed by the teachers of the public schools of 
Fisher county. This statement, however, applies to individual 
subjects rather than to the scope of subject matter. More than a 
dozen country schools were visited, and the teaching observed was 
conducted in the main according to the most approved pedagogical 
methods. But not a single school offered any laboratory training 
in agriculture, domestic economy, or manual training. Little 
effort had been made to adjust the course of study to local environ- 
ment. In one community the proposal of securing state aid for 
establishing a department of agriculture had received considerable 
discussion, but the discussion did not accomplish anything definite. 
The fundamental weakness of the country schools of Fisher county 
is that they do not offer industrial courses. As a matter of fact. 



A Study of Biiral Schools in Texas 143 

One mson ^hi fosllm kik (oulr^ $c]iocU of 
^x$hr Gml^ arc Hoi dcsirMa^ 




93.D ?(ir Ccn} 60 ?ar &nh 

of Ik kackvs drniM of\h Imkrs Hi nof 

wsiHons in 1913* (4. ckngn milm in W'li. 

IN A TOTAL OF SIXTY-TWO TEACHERS: 

58 Changed positions at beginning of last session. 
4 Taught two years at same place. 
None taught three years at same place. 
43 Were new teachers in the county. 

Contrast this with the schools of Germany where teachers 
seldom change more than once in a life-time. 

Does any other public or private business permit such a 
waste by the constant changing of employees? 

If positions are to be made more attractive to the best 
teachers and if the school is to attain its highest efficiency, 
there must be a 

LONGER TENURE OF OFFICE FOR THE TEACHERS 



144 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

any such instruction worthy of commendation will continue to be 
impracticable until centralized consolidated high schools, discussed 
elsewhere, are provided. 

Teachers. 

According to the official report of the county superintendent for 
the year 1912-13, there were employed 66 teachers, 26 males and 
40 females. Twenty-four were holders of second grade, 37 of first 
grade, and 5 of permanent certificates. The matter of employing 
teachers has been a difficult one, there being an oversupply of 
second grade and an undersupply of first grade teachers. Conse- 
quently it has been necessary to import teachers with higher grade 
certificates. Only in this way has the county superintendent been 
able to enforce the provisions of the Rural High School Law, which 
forbids the holders of second grade certificates from teaching high 
school subjects. For the same year, the average salary per teacher 
was $350.95 per year, or $66.21 per month. Such a salary is 
entirely too small to attract and retain efficient teachers. 

By far the most serious question relating to teachers is that of 
tenure of office. An investigation for the year 1913-14 showed 
that only four teachers out of the total of sixty-two were teaching 
the same schools they taught the previous year, that not a single 
teacher had held the same position for a period of three years, 
and that forty-three teachers had never before taught in the county. 
In this respect conditions are not so favorable as in the average 
county. Such rotation of office is indeed a slipshop business 
method, and the application of such methods would bankrupt any 
private business concern which is required to meet competition. 
Contrast this with the town schools where the tenure of office is 
much longer, or with the schools of New York City, where teach- 
ers are selected for indefinite terms, or with the schools of Ger- 
many, where a teacher seldom changes his position more than once 
in a lifetime. Contrast this practice also with the vision of 
Herbert Quick : 

"This schoolhouse (the future school) will not stand alone on a 
bleak hillside, but will be the center of a little hamlet of build- 
ings. There will be a teacher's house with a few acres of land 
attached; and no one but a skilled farmer will have any chance 
to get the position — and the farm. The farm will have barns and 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 145 

.-lieds to suit its size. The teacher will live on it with his family, 
and I hope will be engaged during good behavior. It will be a 
life job for the right person." 

Need of Rural High Schools. 

The representative, in company with the county superintendent, 
visited about fifteen country schools. Excepting two village 
schools which employed three teachers each, none of the schools 
had more than two teachers. The records of the county show that 
twenty-five of the country schools are one-teacher schools, fifteen 
are two-teacher schools, two are three-teacher schools, and one is 
a four-teacher school. This includes all the schools of the entire 
county except those at Roby and Rotan. 

The teachers of the schools visited were as capable and conscien- 
tious as are found in similar schools elsewhere, performing as 
efficient service as could be expected under the conditions. The 
two-teacher schools generally maintained either eight or nine 
grades, the principal having charge of four grades, beginning with 
the fourth or fifth. Excepting the three-teacher and the four- 
teacher schools, not a single school had a high school department 
separate from the grammar grades and employing teachers whose 
work was confined to the high school grades. In the one-teacher 
schools, the character of the high school instruction was even more 
deplorable. Let it be remembered that these schools are the only 
Sichools accessible to the average country boy or girl in Fisher 
county. 

The fact is plainly evident beyond contradiction that the lack 
of thorough high school opportunities is a most serious defect and 
that the conditions now imposed upon these schools make gopd 
high school instruction impracticable and impossible. 

In the western and southwestern parts of the county, there was 
a general sentiment that country high schools should be estab- 
lished. One member of the county board, an enthusiastic advo- 
cate of public education, had proposed the location of a high school 
in a prosperous community about twelve miles west of Eoby, the 
county seat. It was proposed that the children of high school 
advancement from all the adjoining districts be sent to this school. 
The idea met Avith the hearty approval of the people in the com- 



146 Bulletin of the University of Texas 

mimity where the high school was proposed to be located ; but the 
scheme was opposed by the leading citizens in the adjoining com- 
nmnities. It was the same old story of the difficulty in finding a 
satisfactory location for a central school of this kind. Legal ob- 
stacles on account of outstanding bonds in some of the districts 
would have prevented a consolidation of the districts concerned, 
while community pride and local jealousies would have made im- 
possible the establishment of a high school by means of the transfer 
authority, now vested in the county board of education. Failure 
of this effort to obtain a country high school was due to the system 
in vogue rather than to the proper appreciation of high school 
advantages. 

A Practical Plan for Providing High Schools. 

No public spirited citizen believes in retaining a system which 
has proved a failure — a system which within itself defeats the pur- 
poses for which it was created. One purpose of the county school 
system is to provide adequate high school instiniction. The uni- 
versal failure to do this, not only in Fisher county but in all 
Texas, is strong evidence that the general plan should be changed 
so that local community prejudices cannot operate to deprive the 
children of high school advantages. It is the opinion of Mr. Tim- 
mons, formerly county superintendent of Fisher county, that thor- 
ough high schools cannot obtain in the two-teacher and the three- 
teacher schools as they now exist. There must be larger districts 
before real tenth and eleventh grade work can be offered. x\l- 
though the school districts in Fisher county are larger than those 
in the average county, having an average area of 18.8 square 
miles, it is evident that every community cannot maintain 
a high school. On the other hand, it will require the co- 
operation of from three to six districts to maintain one 
efficient high school. Eoad conditions in Fisher county 
would permit high school pupils to travel five to seven miles 
where transportation, either public or private, is provided. 
This means the inauguration of a system of consolidation for high 
school purposes. The high school student within six miles of a 
standard high school under the proposed system would be infinitely 
more fortunate than the high school student residing within a 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 147 

stone's throw of a school with such meager opportunities as are 
now offered. Under the proposed plan, the schools as they now 
exist could be maintained for the pupils of the primary and inter- 
mediate grades. Experience shows that the grouping of districts 
for high school purposes and the location of the high schools should 
be delegated to some centralized authority, such as the county board 
of education, and that all primary, intermediate, and high schools 
maintained in each consolidated district should be under the man- 
agement of a local board of trustees. Since many of the districts 
in Fisher county have issued schoolhouse bonds, there are legal 
obstacles that do not obtain in other counties. Legislation that 
is needed in such cases is discussed under the general topic of con- 
solidation. Summarizing, the present schools of Fisher county 
should ie grouped by the county hoard of education for high schools 
and each consolidated district should be directed by a local board 
of trustees. 

At least two factors should govern in the location of a country 
high school: First, the community should possess strong physical 
resources and a local recognition as a community center; second, 
the location should be such that high school pupils in the surround- 
ing districts could be accommodated. For example, the Dowell 
school in common school district No. 6 of Fisher county possesses 
a strong community sentiment developed through its rich farms, 
stores, churches, lodges, and local farmers' union organization. 
Again, it has a reasonably strong school, and at distances of three 
miles and four miles, respectively, are two other schools which 
could contribute at least fifteen scholastics to the high school at 
Dowell. Dowell is only one of several desirable locations for real 
country high schools. 

Schoolhouses. 

The needs of a community, or a group of communities, are gen- 
erally expressed in the character of its public buildings. Selfish- 
ness often predominates to the extent that the churches and the 
schoolhouses do not bear a creditable comparison with the dwell- 
ings, stores, and other private enterprises in the same community. 
In this respect Fisher county is a notable exception so far as the 
schoolhouses are concerned. The value of the school property per 
country child in this county is $31.19. This is a remarkable show- 



148 



BuJletin of the University of Texas 



ing when we consider that the value of school propert}- per child 
in the state, including towns, is only $30, while the value of school 
property per child in the country schools of the state is les? 
than $15. 

There are forty-two country districts, of which twenty-six have 
issued bonds for the erection of schoolhouses. This total bonded 
indebtedness aggregates $50,800, the average cost of each new 
schoolhouse, including equipment, being $1954. Five of these are 
one-room school buildings, nineteen are two-room school buildings, 
one a three-room building, and one a four-room building. Prac- 
tically all that have more than one room are provided with ac- 





^/^ 


-.^.. „ 






^^IHHHIiii^HHIIHHIHIHI^^B 



The Above is a Type of the Twenty-six ^Modern Schoolhouses in Fisher County. 

cordion doors, which permit their use of the combined floor space 
for community meetings. Except in two or three cases, the school- 
houses have been erected according to modern plans, it being a 
requirement of the county superintendent that all plans conform 
to approved principles with respect to light and ventilation. Ex- 
County Superintendent W. E. Timmon^, whose work is responsible 
for a large part of this progress and who made a special study of 
the scientific construction of small sclioolhouses, insisted upon the 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 149 



AN UNPARALLELD RECORD FOR 
GOOD COUNTRY SCHOOLS 



Four Years' Progress In Fisher County 



Of forty-two districts, twenty-six have issued 
bonds for the erection of schoolhouses. 

Twenty-four of these schoolhouses have been 
built according to approved plans furnished by 
the University of Texas. 

Nineteen of these buildings have approved 
systems of heating, lighting, and ventilation. 

Every school is seated with modern desks. 

Every district levies a local tax; no district 
less than twenty cents, many fifty cents, and the 
average thirty-three cents. 

Not a single special tax or bond tax has been 
defeated in the last six years, and never in the 
history of the county has a community voted off 
a local school tax of any nature. 



150 



Bulletin of the University of Texas 



adoption of plans which he believes are peculiarly applicable to 
the local section. These provide that the house shall face the 
south, that the doors, halls, and cloakrooms shall all be on the 
south, and that the light shall be admitted from the north through 
a window area equal to one-fifth the floor space. In justification 
of this general plan, the following reasons are assigned : (1) The 
windows being on the side opposite the sun, there is no need for 
window shades, which are expensive and which require constant 
adjustment; (2) ventilation coming from the north is more uni- 
form; (3) the evil effects of the prevailing southwest winds are 
reduced to a minimum. 

^ An equally significant fact about these schoolhouses is the con- 
sideration given to heating and ventilation. Nineteen of the 
twenty-six schoolhouses mentioned have modern systems— fresh air 
intakes, foul air outlets, and stoves that provide a uniform tem- 
perature over the entire rooms. Several of these schools were 
visited on the coldest winter days, and there was an absence of 
the stupefying, germ-laden atmosphere usually found in a closed 
room of the country school. 

It was also observed that the rooms of the modern buildings 
were provided with excellent blackboards, a reasonably good supply 
of maps, and comfortable furniture. Every schoolhouse in the 
county is seated with modern desks, about one-fourth being single 
desks and about three-fourths being double desks. 

Local Taxes. 

The development and growth of sentiment for local taxes has 
likewise been marvelous. Including taxes necessary to provide for 
the interest and sinking funds of bonds, more money is collected 
from local taxes than is apportioned to the schools from state and 
county sources. Every district in the county levies a local tax 
for maintenance purposes. No district levies less than twenty 
cents on the one hundred dollars valuation of property. Including 
the bond taxes, many districts levy the maximum of fifty cents, 
while the average tax for all purposes is thirty-three cents. In no 
instance has a maintenance or bond tax been defeated within the 
past six years, and never in the history of the county has a com- 
munity voted off a school tax of any nature. The people of Fisher 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 151 

county are commended for the unparalleled progress which has 
been made in the voting of local taxes and in the erection of 
hygienic schoolhov^es. 

Consequences of Effective Supervision. 

How may we account for this sentiment with respect to school- 
houses and local taxes? While the people are generally progres- 
sive, they are not unlike the people in many other sections. The 
explanation is, they have had the advantage of active leadership 
in the office of county superintendent. Before the office was cre- 
ated, Judge Barker, the ex-officio county superintendent, a man 
of positive convictions, was an uncompromising friend of the public 
schools. In the school work he was succeeded in August, 1908, by 
Superintendent W. R. Timmons, who served till November, 1912. 
The administration of Superintendent Timmons was characterized 
by vigorous campaigns for progressive school measures, among 
which were the lev3dng of local taxes and the construction of good 
schoolhouses. He did not hesitate to espouse actively the cause 
which he advocated, never making a compromise with the enemies 
of progressive school improvement. Superintendent Timmons was 
succeeded by Superintendent W. C. Martin, who is at present 
county superintendent, and who is also an advocate of progressive 
school measures. The following is an extract from a letter re- 
cently written by Superintendent Martin: 

"District No. 33 and District No. 36 have each voted $3000 
bonds unanimously. District No. 18 raised the local maintenance 
tax from 20 cents to 40 cents by a vote of 12 to 1. District No. 
20 voted unanimously to raise the local tax from 20 cents to 40 
cents. District No. 33 raised the local tax from 20 cents to 30 
cents unanimously. District No. 28 will vote on a bond issue of 
$1600 on July 11th, and I feel sure it will carry." 

Observations throughout the state show that the location of 
the office of county superintendent is often not properly consid- 
ered. Some regard it as a kind of appendix, to be located in a 
remote corner of the courthouse. In other instances the county 
superintendent is given an office with some other county officer. 
Such action is an unfailing indication of either stupidity or preju- 
dice. No office in the courthouse is visited bv a larger number 



152 BuUetUn of the Universitij of Texas 




The Old Ganxox School, Fisher Cou.xty. 




TiiK Xi:\v Caxxox School, Fisuek L'uixtv. 



A Study of Bural Schools in Texas 153 

of ladies nor is any office more important than that of county 
superintendent. In this respect the commissioners' court of 
Fisher county has been considerate. The county superintendent 
has been assigned one of the best offices in the courthouse, and it 
is equipped with all necessary furniture. 

furthermore, the commissioners' court has shown liberality m 
giving the county superintendent necessary supplies. School taxes, 
bond taxes, trustees' election blanks, stamps, stationer^', and record 
books are furnished. In addition, the county purchases uniform 
report cards to be used by the teachers of the county. 

County Teachers' Institutes. 

The annual county teachers' institute of this county is held the 
last week in October, just before the majority of the country 
schools open. Last year all teachers who had entered into con- 
tracts were present, and no teacher asked to be relieved of any 
work assigned. The county institute is conducted according to 
the recommendations of the State Department of Education. De- 
serving particular mention is the fact that the program of the 
county institute provided for a discussion of local school problems 
by the institute and the county board of education. The holding 
of local institutes throughout the county would doubtless bring 
the people and the local trustees into closer relation with the 
county superintendent, thereby assisting in the solution of many 
school problems. 

Libraries. 

Throughout the county there is a general lack of libraries. 
Fewer than one-third of the schools have libraries of any kind. 
However, the county superintendent during the past year has given 
encouragement to all attempts to improve this unfortunate con- 
dition. Several schools have recently procured the Texas Farm 
and Ranch libraries. 

County Permanent School Fund. 

Many counties in Texas have violated the law in squandering 
the funds donated to them by the state as a permanent county 
school fund. In this respect the schools in Fisher county have 
been guarded diligently, the permanent school fund of the county 



154 



BuUetUn of the University of Texas 



now being $89,350. It is invested in interest-bearing notes and 
bonds which add each year from $1.50 to $2.00 per pupil to the 
available school fund. 

Summary for Fisher County. 

The employment of a county farm demonstrator to initiate in- 
dustrial organizations through the schools would be a profitable 
investment. 

There needs to he a broader social utilization of the school plant 
under the leadership of the teachers. 

The teachers are commended, for the personal interest which 
they are taking in athletics^ and for the friendly contests developed 
among the different schools. 

The churches need more resident pastors whose time should be 
available for community betterment during the entire week. Sal- 
aries should be at least large enough to enable the pastors to become 
business men to the extent of meeting promptly their living ex- 
penses. This can be best accomplished by strengthening present 
organizations and by discouraging the establishment of too many 
new churches. It is also evident that the church should assume 
a larger work in directing the activities of the young people. 

The fundamental weakness of the country schools is that they 
do not offer industrial courses. 

Salaries are entirely too small to employ and retain efficient 
teachers. 

The fact is plainly evident beyond contradiction that the lack 
of thorough high school opportunities is a most serious defect and 
that the conditions now imposed upon these schools make good high 
school instruction impracticable and impossible. 

The people of Fisher county are commended for the unparal- 
leled progress which has been made in the voting of local taxes and 
in the erection of hygienic schoolhouses. 

The holding of local institutes throughout the county would 
doubtless bring the people and the local trustees into closer rela- 
tion with the county superintendent, thereby assisting in the solu- 
tion of many school problems. 

If the country schools are to perform the character of service 
which prepares the pupils for life, there must be country high 
schools, industrial courses, higher salaries for teachers, longer 
school terms, better libraries, and adequate laboratory facilities. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 155 



XI. BETTERMENT OF EUEAL LIFE ABOUT THE TU- 
LETA EUEAL HIGH SCHOOL, BEE COUNTY, TEXAS. 

(The following contributed article is the story of how a one- 
teacher school, such as that iisiiall}^ found in Texas, was trans- 
formed into a social and intellectual center of the community. It 
indicates the latent possibilities that exist in hundreds of other 
communities. Ko public school position in our state is given a 
wider field of usefulness than that of the country school.) 

Organization of the TuUta Rural High School. 

With the aim of preparing boys and girls for a useful and 
happy life in the open country, the people of District No. 25, 
Bee county, taxed and bonded themselves to the limit of the law, 
donated twenty acres of their best land, gave their services in 
erecting a four-room school building designed by an enterprising 
young physician in their midst, and secured state aid with which 
to establish the departments of agriculture, manual training, and 
domestic economy. 

During the four years since the organization, the board of 
trustees has succeeded in securing teachers trained in such insti- 
tutions as Columbia University, Smith College, the University of 
Texas, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Wis- 
consin. These teachers, imbued with love for their profession, 
gave their time, strength, and money in tireless efforts to work 
out the ideal of the school. The result at Tuleta has proved 
beyond question that a united rural community in co-operation 
with school officers and with trained teachers can do what it wills, 
while it has also proved that the teacher is logically the leader of 
the rural community. 

A willingness to serve the community as the best way of helping 
the individual has been characteristic of the Tuleta people. Their 
principal, Miss Stoltzfns, whose home was in Tuleta, paid her 
own expenses on several trips to Austin in interest of state aid, 
while she accepted the available small salary in order to establish 
the school. She found that it was not convenient for the farmers 
to board the teachers. In order to provide her lady assistants with 
a quiet room in which to study, to make a home for the girls who 



156 BuUetlin of the University of Texas 

wif^hed to board under the chaperonage of teachers, to furnish a 
suitable music room, and to offer -a place where the social life of 
the young people could be directed, she built the "Bungalow" at 
her own expense on her lot near the school building. Miss Stoltz- 
fiis has been principal from the organization of the school. The 
trustees have recognized her wide experience in school rriatters, 
and have elected as assistants those whom she has recommended. 
In this way the faculty has been composed of earnest and capable 
young teachers who were glad to have experience in rural work 
uvider Miss Stoltzfus' direction. She realized, indeed, that these 
ajpbitious beginners could not be satisfied long with their meager 
salary, but she felt it better to sacrifice tenure of office in order 
to secure well trained teachers, if for a short time only. 

The Tuleta school has been a *center of social and intellectual 
activities that have attracted good citizens and have been the 
means of keeping the boys and girls on the farm. N'eighboring 
districts have transferred a large per cent of their pupils to this 
school, and patrons are realizing the value of united effort in 
securing for their children a high school training at home. 

Adjustment of Course of Study to Local Needs. 

The course of study at Tuleta was based upon tliat outlined by 
the State Department of Education, modified to suit local condi- 
tions. The work of each grade was related to home and farm 
through sojue form of handwork in the laborator}', in the field, 
or at home. 

The primary room was furnished with a work table, which was 
constantly surrounded by relays of little people who, between les- 
sons, were l)usv with nature materials, paper, cardboard, paste, 
color, clay, or wood — solving problems related to their work. Ma- 
terials for this work and for nature study were found at home 
and in the vicinity of the school plant. There were the animals, 
plants, and elnys. The village merchant never thought of burn- 
ing his store boxes until the primary teacher had taken an inven- 
tory of them. The waste basket of the generous country editor 
was the source of colored paper supplies, and his storeroom proved 
a veritable mine of cover paper and cardboard at reasonable prices. 
Everybody was glad to help. The teacher's daily preparation for 



A Study of Piural Schools in Texas 



15^ 



this work produced results that were educative to the people be- 
cause they awakened interest, originality, and appreciation of 
beauty and of things about them. A visitor at one of the semi- 
monthly mothers' meetings caught the spirit when, after seeing 
the primary exhibit, she said : "This makes the children love to 
come to school." The end of the school term found these pri- 
mary classes further advanced than pupils of the same grades in 
schools that did not have a course in handwork. (More work for 
the teacher to do? Yes, but there is no successful effort that 




Manual Training Class in Session after School Hours Wlien Tuleta was a 

Two-teacher School. 



does not require labor, and when intelligence is behind such labor 
it ceases to be drudgery.) 

The boys of the intermediate and high school grades were taught 
manual training in a separate building known as the "school shop." 
The hand tools for the first woodworking classes were donated by 
a local merchant. The work benches were made by the boys and - 
a patron carpenter. The boys found the woodwork hour a wel- 
come means of using up their extra energy, which needed just the 
safety valve that hammer and saw, chisel and plane could furnish 



158 



Bulhtlin of the University of Texas 



about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Materials for beginning classes 
in this work consisted of store boxes and scraps of wood found 
about the pupils' homes. The more advanced classes paid for 
their material, which the teacher furnished at cost. 

The use and care of farm tools were taught by making useful 
and attractive things for the home and school. Among the ar- 
ticles were : racks, boxes, benches, tables, and science apparatus 
for the schoolroom. Pupils also made the yard gate, the cold 




Little Girls' Sewins? Class at Tiileta. 



frames, the flow^er press, and the screens for the state. But it 
was with special pride that they pointed to their mechanical draw- 
ings and handsome furniture, such as bookcases, upholstered stools 
and Eoman chairs, writing desks, porch swings, piano benches, 
library tables, musis racks, umbrella racks, hall chairs^ and tab- 
ourets. Many of these pieces were made to be given away, but 
not one piece was for sale except the screen that was made for 
tlic purpose of paying for some of the shop material. "I may 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 159 

put a pen around this porch swing and charge fifty cents a look 
tomorrow," said one of the boys who was helping to put up the 
exhibit for the close of the school; "and believe me," he continued, 
"I wouldn't take fifty dollars for it. The truth is, I wouldn't 
sell it." Another boy spoke up with : "The cost of the material 
in this desk and stool is a dollar and fifty cents, but twenty-five 
dollars won't buy it." Here he affectionately rubbed the lid of 
his desk with the palm of his hand to bring out the polish. Ap- 
preciation for construction, for beauty, for things that are "true 
and square" were some of the most valuable lessons these boys 
learned. What better opportunity for character building, or for 
interesting the children in doing useful things about home? 

The general science laboratory and the school kitchen occupied 
two rooms on the ground floor of the main building in which 
were three sinks wdth running water. A wind pump carried water 
from a deep well into a large covered tank near the building. 
From this tank the water was piped to the drinking fountain. 
The school kitchen with its complete but inexpensive equipment 
for cooking and sewing became the most popular classroom in 
the school. All the girls in school in the fifth grade and above 
were given daily lessons in some phase of domestic economy as 
presented in UnivGrsity Bulletin No. 326. Lessons in the textile 
class were verified on the school loom. The lessons in fitting, 
cutting, and making garments were supplemented by studies in 
tests for identifying fabrics, in the history and manufacture of 
fabrics, in the suitability of material to use, in the relation of 
color to use and becomingness, in the cost and sanitary care of 
materials, and in other topics that provided suggestions and direc- 
tions for good housekeeping at Tuleta. These classes made attract- 
ive and instructive contributons to the school exhibit, such as 
collection of textile, color scales, designs and drawings, holders, 
tea towels, dust caps, curtains, bed linens, baskets, sewing aprons, 
sweaters, underclothes, dresses, and rag rugs. The motliers fre- 
quently contributed their knitting, quilting, or crocheting to the 
school exhibits. 

The classes in domestic science studied briefly the historic de- 
velopment of the home ; the location, the sanitary surroundings, 
and other essentials of a good, comfortable, convenient and beau- 
tiful home. Each girl brought to class the plan of her own home 



160 BiiUetlin of the University of Texas 

or of some room in lier home. This plan was discussed with ref- 
erence to saving steps, ventilation, and furnishings. Wlien con- 
ditions suggested a modification of the original plan, the student 
worked out a new plan, including the changes agreed upon with 
the cost estimated on most economic hases. The girls learned that 
the functions of the room determined its location in the house, 
its decoration, and its furnishings. Another series of ever popular 
lessons were the classification, the nutritive value, the digestibility, 
and the cooking of foods. Balanced meals, the serving of meals, 
invalid cookery, foods for children, and home nursing were val- 
uable parts of this course of study. Stress was placed on home 
canning and preserving home-grown fruits and vegetables. But 
the climax of the girls' work in cooking was reached when in 
the school kitchen they prepared a dinner for their mothers and 
teachers. The table linen used upon this occasion was bought 
with the proceeds of the sewing-class Christmas bazaar. The at- 
tractive decorations, the dainty hand-painted place cards, the well 
cooked and beautifully served meal were all the work of the girls. 
An itemized account of expenses and cost per plate was a part of 
this day's lesson. Credit was given cooking and sewing classes 
for duplicating Avork at home. Materials for all lessons in domes- 
tic science and art were furnished by the patrons, and each stu- 
dent brought her part of the material on the day it was needed. 
This was another example of co-operation of home and school. 

The school farm of sixteen acres was cultivated by the farmers 
and their boys. Last year the boys rented two-acre plots and 
demonstrated the lessons learned in their agriculture classes. In 
spite of a severe drouth they raised a fine crop of kafiir corn and 
cowpeas. The tinistees are hoping to have in the near future suffi- 
cient funds to erect farm buildings and to procure proper equip- 
ment for farm work. This will give the principal a permanent 
home and additional income. It will also give the farmers and 
pupils a permanent rotation demonstration plot. This department 
has a good beginning at an agricultural library and laboratory. 
The agriculture classes have received most of their training out- 
side of books. They gave special attention to botany, biology, 
soils, agronomy, animal husbandry, and dairying. They have 
studied live stock on the neighboring fanns and ranches, visited 
the experiment station, tested milk and seed for the farmers. 



I 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 161. 

studied sewage disposal, good roads, farm buildings, plans for 
beautifying home grounds, system of farm accounts, etc. 

Social and Intellectual Activities. 

This class organized the farm life club, which met monthly in' 
the school auditorium and which has since become the Home and 
School League under the auspices of the State University. Its 
programs were .given by the pupils and patrons. The following 
was the February program: 

Music by Boys' Glee Club. 

1. Dairying a Profitable Business in Bee Count}' — Earl Young, 

2. Tj-pes and Breeds of Dairy Stock Adapted to this Section — 
Archar Page. 

3. Balanced Eations for a Bee County Dairy Cow — Oliver 
Hamilton. 

4. The Business Side of Dairying — Richard Xelson. 

5. Care of the Dair}^ Cow — Foster Porter. 

6. How to Cook Milk and Milk Products— Esther Nelson. 
There was an exhibit of cottage cheese at this meeting. The 

most attractive dish consisted of molded cheese, seasoned, and gar- 
nished with crisp lettuce leaves, strips of sweet red pepper, and 
boiled salad dressing. A member of the cooking class told how 
to make cottage cheese, and why this dish might serve as the main 
part of a balanced evening meal on the farm. 

The athletic association was a feature of Tuleta school life in 
which pupils, teachers, and parents were interested. The teachers 
helped to organize good team games, basketball, tennis, and base- 
ball for boys and for girls. At intermission each group of pupils 
played its favorite game on its particular part of the school ground. 
The boys cleared the trees and brush from a neighboring lot and 
made a "first class baseball diamond." Here they won and lost 
some very exciting games in the presence of interested audiences. 
School yells and songs, occasioned by these games, awakened a 
school spirit that with added years will develop into community 
pride and co-operation. 

The school literary society held its semi-monthly meetings on 
Tuesday afternoons in the schoolhouse. The public debates al- 
ways attracted large and enthusiastic audiences. Among the sub- 



162 



Bulhtlin of the University of Texas 



jects for discussion were: Woman Suffrage, Panama Canal Toll, 
Initiative and Eeferendum, Compulsory Education, and Monroe 
Doctrine. It was upon these occasions that the paper, "The Chap- 
arral," was read, the last edition of which was published in mag- 
azine form, with cover design and illustrations from the school 
art class. 

School and home activities afforded the teacher of English ample 
material for spelling and composition lessons; they furnished in- 
numerable models for the drawing class; they gave practical prob- 




View of Tuleta School Work Shop. — Children preparing for May Day. 

lems for matliematics, and many correlations with history and 
geography. 

A school library of some three hundred books was supplemented 
by the principal's books and magazines, by a fine collection of 
farm bulletins in labelled files made by the boys, and by a half 
dozen agricultural papers. These books and papers were read at 
school, at home, and as supplements to textbooks. The library 
was open each Saturday afternoon during vacation. 



Use of Local Talent Outside the School. 

Among the most successful members of the corn club were pupils 
from the Tuleta school, and their agricultural exhibit has always 
carried off the prize at the county fair. These exhibits were of 
social and economic value to the school, to this community, and 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 163 

io the county. They awakened a friendly rivah-y that meant school 
improvement throughout the county and beyond the county bound- 
aries. The Tuleta prizes for the best marching and for the best 
exhibits were used to buy new books for the library and to help 
pay for the accordion doors to the auditorium. 

The students, "the post graduates," and the teachers organized 
ihe "Dramatic Club." These workers gave the people many even- 
ings of entertainment for the benefit of the school. They bought 
the lights for the auditorium and paid for the lumber for the seats. 
Buf it was during the rainy weather that the farmers took a day 
•off to make these seats free of charge under the direction of a com- 
petent carpenter. The auditorium now seats comfortably four 
hundred people. 

In the "Bungalow" were held the weekly meetings of the "Glee 
Club." Here everybody, old and young, interested in learning 
music \A'as always welcome. The glee club concerts were popular 
events in the community life, and helped to cultivate a taste for 
the best music. It was in the bungalow that the music teacher 
taught his classes and gave his recitals; there on special occasions 
-everybody entertained his friends, and there the Victrola concerts 
were given. 

Another feature of community welfare was the annual course of 
lectures given at the schoolhouse by experts from the State Uni- 
versity and the State Departments of Education and Agriculture, 
demonstrators from the Agricultural and Mechanical College, and 
by other friends of education. 

No school can carry on its work successfully without the co- 
operation of the mothers of the pupils. The Tuleta mothers' meet- 
ing was organized the Saturday before the opening of school, and 
has continued to meet in the school kitchen at regular intervals. 
A valuable and popular feature of each program was a lesson on 
some chosen phase of housekeeping by the teacher of domestic 
economy. When the lesson included the cooking of some food, the 
product was used for "refreshments." A cup of tea with home- 
made wafers proved a wonderful medium in clearing up the little 
misunderstandings between the teacher and "John" or "Mary." 
The ladies taxed themselves to furnish the necessary supplies for 
these lessons. An important part of special meetings was the 
exhibit of home products, such as canned or preserved home grown 



164 



Bulletlin of the University of Texas 



fruits or vegetables, home-made bread and cakes, or rag rugs. 
Sujch exhibits have resulted in an exchange of recipes and an un- 
usuall}' successful social hour. The discussion included sewing 
problems, better home laundries, saving steps in the home, school 
lunches, and substitutes for meat and for Irish potatoes. 

Home industries for the production of objects of commercial 
ar.d artistic value are being organized under the direction of the 
teacher of domestic art. Woven, braided, or crocheted rugs, china- 



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A Farmers' Meeting at Tuleta. — Exhibition of Farm Products. 



berry and salt beads, bonnets, and quilts are some of the products 
of the Tuleta homes. To train the mind and hand to create some- 
thing beautiful is often a valuable and needed form of play and 
of earning power which drive away discontent and emptiness in 
life. Another get-together feature of the community was the 
Civic League, organized and managed by the Tuleta women to 
beautify the village park which their efforts had made possible, 
and to keep the citizens reminded of their duties on annual Clean- 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 165 

up Day. Everybody attended the league ice cream socials, box 
suppers, picnics, and other money-making entertainments. 

Special days throughout the year were celebrated at the school- 
house or at the Bungalow. The Christmas program and the Hal- 
lowe'en and Valentine parties have become annual events, to be 
enjoyed by many people. 

Tuleta school was opened with a successful farmers' institute, 
and this important gathering has held all of its subsequent meet- 
ings at the schoolhouse. The teacher has been an officer of this 
club, while the! pupils have taken active part in the meetings. The 
program committee of this body of farmers has brought to tbc 
community some of the great agricultural experts. It was this 
club that encouraged the raising of better com seed for the com- 
munity, the keeping of more dairy cows, and the production of 
better poultry and poultry products. This group of farmers was 
among the first in the state to study the subject of rural credits 
and the Eaiffeisen banking system. 

Closing Exercises of the School. 

The annual closing exercises of the Tuleta school have always 
repxesented the year's work in an all-day program. The following 
was the program for May 5, 1914: 

Invocation. 

School chorus. 

Welcome address. 

Primary exercises which consisted of songs, stories, nature talks, 
and drills. 

A Home-made Fireless Cooker — How I Made it and How to 
Use it. 

Eradication of Household Pests. 

The Country Boy's Creed. 

Story of Gettysburg. 

Choosing of Textiles. 

How to Make a Cup of Good Tea. 

Home Canning. 

Meat — Its Nutritive Value, and How to Cook it. 

Hog Eaising in Bee County. 

Farm Sewage Disposal. 



166 BuUetlin of the University of Texas 

Good Eoads. 

Life History of a Bean. 

Greek Architecture. 

Color — Its Use and Expression. 

The Farm-Home Living Eoom. 

Goat Eaising in Texas. 

Gasoline Power on the Farm. 

Our Big Canal. 

Farm Accounts. 

Care of the Teeth. 

Eed Letter Days of the School Year. 

Address by Hon. F. M. Bralley. 

Each pupil's address was illustrated by suitable objects or by 
charts which he made for the purpose. These charts were both 
educative and decorative. The pupils furnished the vocal and in- 
strumental music for the occasion. While the above program was 
being presented, a group of girls on the stage was making a dress, 
and another group was making baskets. The speaker on "Meat" 
cooked for her audience on her oil stove on the stage a delicious 
steak from a cheap cut. The "Good Cup of Tea" was made by 
the speaker, who served this tea with dainty sandwiches. The 
delicious cereal cooked in the home-made fireless cooker was tasted 
and pronounced perfect, as was the can of pork and beans which 
the little housekeeper who spoke on "Home Canning" passed to 
her audience. In fact, the stage with its group of young workers 
presented more the appearance of a working bee than it did the 
conventional commencement program. A unique feature of this 
program was an auction at which were sold the dress and the 
baskets made on the stage, the doll house made and furnished by 
the fifth and sixth grades, and the screen made in the school shop. 

The horse show on the grounds attracted much attention and 
promised better stock for the commamity. 

A barbecue, free to all, proved a grand socializing feature at the 
noon hour, while at night a delightful rural operetta, "Alvin Gray," 
furnished much pleasure to the crowd and helped to pay for needed 
school improvements. 

At the close of these exercises opportunities were given for vol- 
unteer speeches from visitors and from home folks, who responded 
with good will and much encouragement to the teachers and pupils. 



A Study of Rural Schools in Texas 167 

All then joined in singing "America," after which the students 
grouped themselves, gave hearty "rahs" for everybody, and sang 
their school song as only loyal students can sing. 
One stanza ran : 

"We are the folks of Tuleto school, 
The Bee County Eural High; 
You'll find us in the country 
In the state of the Lone Star. 
To see a better spot on earth 
You'll surely travel far. 
For Tuleta's in the lead, they say. 
She's there to stay ! 
Hur-r-ray ! 

The final program of the school's literary society, on the Satur- 
day niglit before commencement, was as follows : 

Piano duet. 

Chorus — Brahm's "Lullaby." 

A Story— William Tell. 

Composition — Our Inheritance from the Greeks. 

Declamation — Compulsory Education. 

Chorus — "The Drowsy Bee." 

Recitation — "Why Women Need the Suffrage." 

Debate — Eesolved, that the Monroe Doctrine Should be Aban- 
doned. 

Reading of School Magazine — "The Chaparral." 

Song — By High School Boys. 

Drama — "Little Women" (Miss Alcott). 



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